


Dark Secrets of the Light

by phoenixreal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Automail, Child Abuse, Fluff and Angst, Fluffy Ending, Human Experimentation, M/M, Prosthesis, Protective Roy, RoyEd Week, Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-03-04 17:55:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3077633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixreal/pseuds/phoenixreal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Fullmetal Alchemist Yaoi Fanfiction Novel<br/>Roy Mustang/Edward Elric</p><p>Colonel Mustang goes to Central City to take over the police force there under State orders.  He finds himself, though, in the middle of a den of secrets involving a scientist and his son, and perhaps more than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Notes
> 
> This is an alternative universe fanfiction. Characters are placed in a world of my own creation. In some cases, the characters and their personalities have been altered to fit the situation.
> 
> Warnings
> 
> This is a hardcore yaoi fanfiction. This is rated MA. This contains explicit sexual content. This story includes several adult themes. This story may contain at any point: non-consensual sexual acts, sexual abuse, physical abuse, depictions of child abuse, depictions of blood and gore, human experimentation, torture, and unethical scientific methods. This story also contains consensual sexual content. This story is not intended to be read by individuals under the age of 18. By reading this story, you are agreeing that you are both over the age of eighteen and aware of the possibility of disturbing material contained within.
> 
> Disclaimer
> 
> I do not claim ownership of any part of the Fullmetal Alchemist universe or of the characters. Hiromu Arakawa is the mangaka for Fullmetal Alchemist and owns this world and these characters. I am simply playing within it. Original elements do belong to me. There is no copyright infringement intended and I in no way make money from writing or posting this work of fanfiction.
> 
> For more information on Fanfiction, Fanart, and Legal Rights associated with both, see the Organization for Transformative Works at http://transformativeworks.org/.

* * *

 

Central City was perhaps the most misnamed city in the State of Amestris.  A small, out of the way place, almost a hundred miles from anywhere that mattered, the town was a small town trying to be a big city and failing miserably.  The population was nearly a hundred thousand people, and they had a local college.  North of the closest real city but smack in the middle of the State, Central City didn’t welcome outsiders very warmly.  Despite the midsized nature of the city, the people in city government had been there for generations, the titles passed from father to son. So it was when the State government insisted on using a State run police force, they were not welcomed with open arms.  Most of those in Central City felt that they could handle things well enough on their own.  President Bradley, head of the State of Amestris, did not agree.

The new head of the Amestris Police Force stationed in Central City was a man named Colonel Roy Mustang.  Roy had been sent to the city with his own task force to take over the local police and install his officers in the high ranking positions.  They were only six people that Roy brought with him, and most of those already in the police force were kept, though some were moved to different positions.  This was not met with happiness.  There was much resentment and some outright hatred of the interlopers in their city.  Roy had brought in Deputy Chief Maes Hughes, Commander Riza Hawkeye, Major Jean Havoc, Major Kain Fuery, Captain Vato Falman, and Lieutenant Heymans Breda with him.  The existing chief of police, Chief Alex Armstrong, remained in his position, though the rank of Colonel was installed as a superior rank by the State.  Majors Kimblee, Ross, and Tucker were kept from in their positions as heads of their divisions along with the Desk Sergeant Denny Brosh.

It was a rough transition, but Roy tried his best to keep everyone in line.  Central City was known for its tight knit community.  While the city itself was rather large, the people in the city government tried its best to keep too much change from happening to their community too quickly.  They did not like change, and they didn’t like the State coming in and changing their police force.

Three weeks had passed, and finally Roy could walk down the street without getting glared at, well, he didn’t get glared at by everyone now, just only a quarter of the people he encountered.  It wasn’t like he came here to turn things upside down.  He was under orders from President Bradley.  There were too many local forces that just did not have things together, and this was one of them.  Part of the problem people had with him was that Roy was a war hero, but he was also rather young, in his late twenties.  He had a lot of power and control for a man his age, and there were many things about him that set other people off.  He didn’t particularly care much for public opinion and often came off as condescending, even when he didn’t mean to do so.

Things were strange, of course, as he got into the community.  He didn’t speak about it, but he wasn’t particularly keen about being moved with his entire team like this.  He followed orders though, and he did his job, no matter how many times he received dirty looks from the locals.  His thoughts were somewhere around those areas when he ran smack into one of the local kids as he was walking down main street.

“Oh, oh, Colonel Mustang, sir I’m sorry!” squeaked the young man.  He was a lanky, willowy boy in his late teens with sandy brown hair.  Roy, of course, recognized him immediately.  He had files on all the prominent citizens of Central City and their families.

Roy smiled, pushing his black hair from his eyes and kneeled down to help the kid pick up his satchel full of books that had scattered when they had collided.  Roy was known for his quick mind, and one of his abilities was near perfect memory and analysis.  Five books had slid out.  One was a first grade reading primer, another was a book on advance biomechanics, a third was a book on basic first aid, the fourth a book on speech therapy, and the last a book on preschool skills.  It was a curious combination of books to be certain. 

“I’m sorry, Alphonse, right?  You’re the Elric boy that lives at the end of Mansion Road with your dad, Van Hohenheim, one of Amestris’s head scientists.”

Roy knew about their family even before he came to live in the city because they were perhaps one of the most influential forces in all of Central City.  Hohenheim was a scientific genius, and his innovations alone had brought enough income into Central City that there was nothing the man could do that was wrong to most people in this city.  For the State, he was one of the largest innovators and producers of advanced medical technology and genetic manipulation.  He’d lost his wife before he moved to the area with a young son.  Al, or Alphonse, was a genius as well, and was currently at the beginning of his college education at the local school.  However, there were some strange rumors around the city about the family.  The strangest of which was that no one had ever been inside their house.  Al had many friends but his father said his work was too delicate to have others in the house.

Al smiled.  “Yeah, I know you.  Chief Armstrong was at the school when you came to town to tell us what was happening,” he said with a grin.

“How are you doing?” Roy asked, slipping his white gloved hands into his uniform pockets.  He never went out without his gloves.

“I’m good, Colonel Mustang,” Al said, looking a bit nervous.

“Roy, I’m not on duty right now.  Where are you off to?” he asked.  “That’s quite a stash of books you’ve got.”

Roy knew now something was odd because the look that crossed the boy’s face was somewhere between terror and anger.  “Oh, yeah, discount books at the bookstore I work at.  Never know what will come in handy!” he said, waving as he left.  Roy watched for a long moment until he felt someone walk up behind him.

“What’s wrong, sir?  You’ve got that look,” Jean Havoc said softly.  Havoc was one of Roy’s best people.  Major Havoc was the head of the foot patrol section of the officers.

“Something’s just not right around here,” he said, watching Alphonse Elric disappear down the road.

“Yeah, well, you best be getting back to the office.  Hawkeye’s looking for you,” Jean said with a smile.

Roy cringed.  “That woman is a slave driver.  Paper work, I hate paperwork!” he muttered, scratching his head thoughtfully as he turned and headed back to the precinct.

“Yeah, well, if you don’t do it, she’s going to crack you in the skull with that pistol of hers,” Jean said with a smirk.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

It was nearly another three months before something came up that made Roy sure that there was more happening than there appeared to be in the large house on Mansion Road. 

He’d kept his eyes on various locals, including the too good to be true Hohenheim.  Something about the man didn’t sit right with Roy, and he couldn’t quite figure it out.  He had poured over his research and the work he did for the State as well as for the locals, and some of the things he did just didn’t seem all that possible.  There was no doubt that he was an innovator in science and technology.  In his research, he often spoke about test subjects, or test batches, but none of them went into detail on exactly who the test subjects were and where they came from.  Roy wasn’t a biomechanical engineer, nor was he a doctor, but he did know a few things about genetics, and he knew that some of the things that Van Hohenheim had done would have to have had human test subjects.  He’d developed an inoculation for a group of people in the east that were born with blindness almost seventy five percent of the time.  There was another cure for previously irreparable cochlear nerve damage from explosive discharges or genetic deformity.  He had come up with ways to actually repair brain tissue and nerves directly.   

His son Alphonse was an A+ student, popular, and going to the local college with a full scholarship in mechanical engineering.  He worked part time at a book store, and more than once Roy would see him leaving with a bag full of books.  He never got another chance to see what books he was taking with him.  Still, Roy’s mind would go back to the first time he ran into him.  Why would a kid like him need a reading primer and preschool activity books?  It didn’t make any sense at all.

He was also more than a little suspicious of two of his Majors.  Major Solf Kimblee was a local who was over the administration and human resources division.  He was the type that when he smiled, he made skin crawl and was constantly looking like he was thinking almost murderous thoughts.  He had also doubled as the bomb disposal technician, which surprised Roy.  The other, another local officer named Major Shou Tucker was the head medical examiner, and he had an almost unhealthy obsession with biology of things.  It wouldn’t have been so strange but the man would go on, in gruesome details, about autopsies and necropsies.  When there did happen a murder or a mysterious death, he took great glee in showing graphic photos and describing in detail everything for the officers and

The only people Roy trusted for certain were his own.  Something was happening in this town, and he was wondering if the police chief, a seemingly incorruptible man, was involved.  Because of this suspicion, he kept his thoughts from Chief Armstrong.  The man had been incredibly willing to work with him while the rest of the place had been at best resistant to the change in command, or at worst, outright aggressive about it.

Things culminated one fall afternoon when his assistant Riza Hawkeye buzzed him saying someone was here to see him.  Curious he had her send whoever it was in and was surprised to see a wide eyed Alphonse Elric.  One of his eyes was still deep reddish purple where someone had hit him with a more than solid punch to his face.  Roy stood up and approached the lanky teen, both curious and worried.  He didn’t want to admit to the rising excitement in his chance because this was perhaps his opportunity to investigate further into what was happening.

“Alphonse, what happened?  Are you okay?” he asked, truly worried.  He’d never imagined the boy getting into trouble or fights.  He was genuinely one of the nicest kids in town.  More than once, he’d stopped and talked to Roy when he was out for his afternoon walk and passed the bookstore.  They had talked about many things over the last months, from small talk to politics.  Roy had been impressed at the boy’s wide knowledge base for a kid that had never left home.

“Roy, Colonel, what…what do you do when…when you know something is wrong….but…but you can’t tell someone b-because…you can’t?” he said, tears already gathering at the corners of his eyes.  He was clutching a ripped book satchel. The frustration and fear on his face was apparent.  The boy was tormented by whatever had brought him to see Roy.

Roy reached out and took the bag as Al watched numbly, not moving to stop him from taking the satchel.  Roy blinked and opened the ruined bag.  Inside was a motley collection of books.  All of them had been torn apart.  Pages were scattered and crumbled in the bag and ripped into shreds.  He pulled the cover of the reading primer he’d seen the day he’d run into Alphonse the first time out.  There were dirty, smudged fingerprints around the edges.  Someone had been using this book a lot.

“What is this?” Roy said, looking up.

“I…don’t…it was okay before, but…but now…I can’t be quiet.  I’m scared, so scared, Roy, what do I do?  If I say something…I…I’m betraying m-my father…I…but if I don’t…he won’t stop, he has to stop…” he said quietly.  “I’m scared, and I just…I want to tell someone, but if he finds out…won’t it be worse? Wh-what if nothing changes?”

Roy stared at him for a long moment then laid the bag on his desk.  “Alphonse,” he said softly and put both hands on the young man’s shoulders.  He looked up at him with teary eyes.  “I’m not going to make you betray anyone.  Stay here.  I’ll stop whatever this is.  Just stay here.”

Alphonse nodded, sitting down with shaking hands.  Roy knew something was happening but for this kid to act like this, what could be going on?  He’d thought that perhaps his father was abusive, but over the last four months since he’d arrived, he’d never had a mark on him.  He stepped out into the bullpen and looked around.  “Havoc, come with me.  Got an assignment I need your help with,” he said, feeling the eyes of everyone on them.

Jean came running, tucking his blonde hair behind his ears and pulling out a cigarette as soon as they got outside.  “What’s up, boss?” he asked, walking beside his colonel with a quick stride.

“Elric boy came in, black eye, scared to death.  Something is going on in that house, and I’m finding out what,” he said as he slid into the driver’s seat of his State vehicle.  Havoc jumped in beside him. 

“How we gonna manage that, boss?  We can’t just walk in and do a search,” Havoc said, scratching his head.  They had State military backing, but they were not authorized to do unwarranted search and seizure of private property.

“No, just follow my lead, okay?” Roy said as they pulled up in front of the huge house at the end of Mansion Road.  He trusted Havoc.  The man would not let him down.  He had an idea, and he just hoped it worked out the way he wanted.

They got out and went up to the door and knocked.  There were lights on in some of the windows.  “Dr. Hohenheim?  Please come to door, Colonel Mustang, I need to speak to you immediately!” he called after his knocking didn’t summon anyone to the door.

A few seconds later the door opened and the tall, blonde scientist stood there staring with a scowl on his face.  “Yes, what is it?”

Roy cringed internally.  Police show up at his door and he doesn’t ask about his son.  The alarms in Roy’s head were starting to ring louder than before.

“Sorry to bother you, but we’ve had a report of a break-in at your neighbor’s home, so we’re checking in with everyone to see if they’ve heard or seen anything,” Roy said with a very diplomatic smile.

Hohenheim frowned deeper.  “Why are you here?  Shouldn’t you be running the station?” he asked.  “If there is a break-in, why would you not send a foot patrolman to check in?  This makes no sense to send a Colonel for something like this.”

Roy smiled brightly.  “Oh, sir, you are somewhat of a VIP around here, I couldn’t leave coming out here in the hands of foot patrolmen.  President Bradley would have my head if I didn’t personally see to your safety.”

Havoc was impressed.  Roy could lie, he knew that, but this was on a whole new level.  He would have believed every word he said if he didn’t already know it wasn’t true.  Hohenheim, though, did not seem impressed. 

“There is no problem here, please leave,” he said and attempted to slam the heavy door when Roy heard a crash inside the house.  He knew it wasn’t just him, because Hohenheim jumped.  That was exactly the opening he needed.  If there was nothing, he now had an excuse to enter the house.  If there was something, he wouldn’t have to face questioning.  Granted, he did lie about the break-in.  He only hoped that there was something to be found that made his superiors ignore his unauthorized action.

“Sir, step back, it might be the intruder!” he said, pulling his gun to the ready and quickly hiding a smirk that was threatening to break across his lips.

“There is no one here, it was…the cat,” he said, trying to shove Roy back. 

Roy was having none of it, though, especially when he heard something rattle.  He shoved back on the door and Havoc followed him, holding the door as the scientist tried to close it even still with Roy standing in the opening.  Hohenheim growled at him. 

“Get the hell out of my house!” he snapped, lunging to tackle the other man despite the service pistol in his hand.  Havoc was quicker, and snagged him back by hooking his arm around the other man’s neck to stop him.

“Whoa there, Dr. Hohenheim, sir, you can’t just attack the Colonel!” he said, and struggled against the scientist.  He was a lot stronger than he looked.  “Go ahead, boss, I got this,” Havoc said, grunting as Hohenheim tried to get the broader man off of him.

Another noise caught Roy’s attention, coming from a partially opened door in the middle of the room.  He headed toward it, completely ignoring the profane proclamations coming from the owner of the house.

“Stay out of there!” Hohenheim screamed as Roy got closer to the door, almost yanking out of Havoc’s grip.  Roy turned and stared at him as he pulled open the door to reveal a set of stairs leading down into a dark basement.  Again, a small noise, not like before but something was moving down there.  “That’s a lab, I have experiments down there!   Stay out, you’ll ruin them!” he shouted.

At the shouting, Roy was sure he heard someone gasp and whimper.  He turned back to Hohenheim.  “Who is down there?”

“No one, there is no one down there, now get out of my house!  I’ll call President Bradley on you in the morning!  I’ll have your head on a plate!” he screamed.  Havoc had to jerk him back hard again as he tried to lunge once more toward Roy.

“We’ll see about that,” Roy said, reaching in the doorway and flicking a switch that turned on a dim, flickering bulb in the basement.  He started down the stairs and winced at the smell.  It wasn’t bad, but it was dank and moldy.  It was not a pleasant smell and it did not match what most of the labs he’d been in smelled like.

If this was his lab, there was something seriously wrong with the guy.  He could smell wet dirt, ammonia, and the distinct smell of rats and mice.  He stepped down onto the concrete floor and put away his pistol.  His heart was in his throat because scenes like this didn’t bode well for what was to be found in them.  He’d been in a war, after all, and he’d been in dark, dank places like this.  The things usually hidden in them were terrible beyond words.  He heard what sounded like metal scraping concrete, and now he knew he was hearing someone breathing.  There was someone down here.  The doctor was lying about it for some reason.  What was he going to find?

“Hello?” he called, trying to keep his voice from shaking. 

It wasn’t that he was in fear of his life or anything.  He’d often been in much more dangerous situations, to be honest.  No this was a different kind of fear, the one that sits low in the belly and twists and turns because it isn’t the kind of fear that makes a man run.  No, this was the kind of fear that makes a man sick beyond words.  This was the kind of fear when walking through a burned out husk of a building and knowing that a body burned beyond recognition would be found at some point.  This was the kind of fear when walking through a scene of battle and knowing that there would be someone that couldn’t be saved.  This was a fear that could not be run from by a man like Colonel Mustang.

Again a subtle scrape of metal and a slight gasp resounded, and then almost a whine in the darkness beyond the light’s dim radius could be heard.  “Please, my name’s Roy, I’m here to help you, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, trying to keep his voice even.  Again, a sound of fear, quickening breath, he knew that sound quite well.

Roy pulled out his flashlight and stepped toward sounds carefully.  He didn’t think whoever was down here was dangerous, but scared people sometimes lashed out.  He really didn’t want to lose his head like that in trying to save someone.  He followed the concrete path toward the back of the basement past the light. 

The place was lined with shelves, and only half of it had stone walls.  He’d come down a straight set of stairs with a wall almost in front of them, forcing him to have to turn and go back under what would be the area that Havoc and Hohenheim were standing over.  If he was right, the stone walls stopped at the end of the house, but beyond that point there was a dirt portion of the place.  He walked under a broad a stone archway and it opened into a round, dirt room.  The floor hadn’t even been covered with concrete.  This was where the damp earth smell was coming from.  A coppery, metallic smell caught his nose and again his heart beat in his ears.  He sung the flashlight around and saw that there were furnishings in here of a sort. There were shelves and tables in the back, a steel table smack in the center of the room, and a…bed?  Roy stopped, his mouth going dry.

There was a dingy cot, not really a bed, over to the side, and the steel table looked to be some sort of surgical table.  Roy glanced at the table then walked toward the bed.  There was no pillow, and only a thin blanket laying on it.  He shook his head as he traced the flashlight over the small space.  How could anyone live in this sort of condition?  He spun around and stared when he heard movement behind him and caught a shadow moving just outside his flashlight’s range.

“Please, can you come out?  I won’t hurt you,” he said softly, heading in the direction of the noise and where he saw the shadow move.  Behind a rack of shelves he heard the quick breathing and as he moved his light toward it, he caught sight of what looked like blonde hair and fingers gripping the shelf.  It was a corner, and whoever it was had nowhere left to go.

He moved slowly, the light starting to illuminate a figure now, crouching behind the metal shelf, and it was definitely a mess of blonde hair on it.  He kneeled down a couple feet away from them but kept the light on them.

“Hey, who are you?” Roy said quietly.

The figure seemed to tremble but slowly, the head turned and a pair of golden colored eyes was staring at him from between the slats of the shelf.  Roy smiled, the odd color of the eyes rattling him; that was not a natural eye color, they almost glowed in the darkness of the basement.  “There we are, hey.  I’m Roy; can you tell me your name?”

The eyes blinked and just stared at him.  Roy moved forward and the figure jerked, the left hand moving and grabbing the side of the shelf.  Roy stared for a moment, unsure if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.  The hand, and arm from what he could tell, was metallic. 

“I just want to know your name,” Roy said, taking the distraction to inch forward bit by bit as he spoke.  Whoever it was, they were frightened.  He pointed to his chest and smiled again.  “Roy,” he said, tapping his chest and recalling the book on reading and speech that Alphonse had had.

“E-Ed…” finally came from the figure’s mouth, but it was strained and obviously took effort for him to say.

Suddenly things began to come together all at once for certain.  The books.  Alphonse’s appearance at the precinct.  No one ever being allowed into the house.  He had to take the chance on what he thought was happening.

“Ed, Al sent me,” he said softly.  “He’s at my office right now.  I can take you to him.”

At the name, the boy’s head came up all the way and he stared at him with those unsettling eyes glittering brightly at Roy.  His mouth worked hard for a moment and he said softly, “A-Al…b-bro…b-brother…”

“Al’s your brother, that’s right, he wanted me to come get you,” Roy said, standing up and moving forward.  This time Ed didn’t try and run; instead he pulled himself up on the shelving he was holding, and Roy winced.  He could see now the condition he was in and only his experience kept him from vomiting.

He was wearing what amounted to a pair of ripped shorts of some sort, no shirt, and Roy could see where the metal on his left arm fused into the skin of his shoulder.  His right leg was also metallic and fused into the skin of his thigh.  His face was dirty and drawn, and his long blonde hair fell around him in dingy strands.  Roy could count his ribs easily, and even in the dim light of his torch, he could see there were numerous bruises and cuts on him.  Where he clutched at the metal of the shelf, the metal was buckling under his metal hand.  He watched Roy with suspicious eyes and didn’t move at all as he looked him over.  He stood perhaps five foot or so, and it was obvious by the fact his skin was nearly translucent, he hadn’t been outside in a very long time.

“Let’s leave okay?” he said, reaching out a hand for him.

Ed stepped out slowly, wobbling on his metal limb for a second before he fell to his knees with a clang.  Roy, without thinking, moved forward and put his hands on Ed’s shoulders in concern.  Ed’s head popped up and he gasped and stared into Roy’s eyes for a long moment and Roy could feel the shuddering going through his body.  It was too late, though, he’d done something he wasn’t going to do, so he had to continue.  He knew better than to initiate physical contact with a traumatized person before their full status was known.  That was basic.

“Shh,” he said, trying to stroke the boy’s shoulder’s in soothing manner as he kneeled in front of him.  “I’m not going to hurt you; we’re going out of here, okay?  I’m going to pick you up,” he said softly.  He wasn’t entirely sure that Ed knew what he said, though, so Roy leaned forward and put an arm under his and then moved quickly and lifted him up easily.  He stumbled a bit, having expected the metal to weigh more, but perhaps it was because the boy was nearly skeletal as it was.

“We’re going, Ed,” he said, clutching the flashlight in his hand that held up his knees as he went up the stairs.  Ed immediately buried his face in Roy’s shoulder when they came into the brightly lit room. 

Roy was not surprised when he found that Hohenheim had been handcuffed and taken to the car.  Havoc jumped and ran toward him when he came out of the basement door.

“Havoc, take Hohenheim in.  Take…take him…back to the station and throw him in an interrogation room,” Roy said, feeling the boy’s fingers digging into his back and shoulders.

“What the hell…” Havoc muttered, looking at his Colonel with wide eyes.  “Who is it?”

Roy adjusted the waiflike body as Ed panted against his collarbone.  “Apparently, Hohenheim’s other son.”

Havoc stared for a minute.  “His what?”

Roy nodded.  “Get an ambulance out here now; I need to take him to the hospital to see what kind of condition he’s in.  Call it in, and have Hawkeye meet me there with Alphonse.”

Havoc nodded, pulling out the walkie on his belt.  Roy moved into the living room where there was a pair of couches and tried to put the boy down but found him clinging to him even more than before.  He winced, and eased himself down onto the sofa and situated the boy on his lap as comfortably as he could.  He noted that he’d stopped panting on him, so perhaps some of his fear had abated.

He used one free hand to push the hair away from his face, gently working knots out of the dirty strands.  Roy could easily tell the boy had beautiful hair, and even thin and drawn, his face was one of those that radiated when he smiled.  Roy imagined that, of course, but he knew.  He wondered thoughtfully how old he was.  He had to be younger than Alphonse.  That kid was easily almost six foot tall and had just turned nineteen.  This one had to be much younger. When he’d stood up downstairs, he couldn’t have even been five foot in height.  Roy quickly noticed that he seemed to curl into him even more the more he stroked his hair and back.  He had to keep him calm and still.  He had no idea what condition he was in otherwise.

It seemed forever, sitting in the room alone, stroking the boy’s head until the door opened to reveal a pair of medics.  They came toward them, announcing themselves rather loudly, and Roy winced as the metal fingers dug into his arm, no doubt leaving bruises.  He realized that Ed wasn’t letting go.

“For the sake of all of us, I’m going with,” Roy said, slowly standing with the boy.  The two medics stared in disbelief at the state of the boy Roy held.

“We don’t let people ride in the back that aren’t family,” the first said softly, automatically, her eyes centered on the emaciated form Roy held.

“Well, considering that we just took his father to the precinct, and he has a deathgrip on my arm with a metal hand, I think I’m going in the back with him. I don’t fancy losing my arm,” Roy said, wincing again as the fingers dug into his bicep even harder.  He had said it as an exaggeration, but he was wondering exactly how much of an exaggeration it actually was...

The medics glanced at each other and nodded, letting Roy carry him into the back, but as Roy expected, Ed wouldn’t let Roy put him down, and he wouldn’t let the medic in the back touch him.  If either of them got close to him, he’d tighten his grip and attempt to hide himself in Roy’s arms even further despite it being completely impossible.  Roy asked them to wait until they got to the hospital as he wasn’t in danger at the moment.  A few moments later, he got out at the hospital and was led into a private room where Ed hid his face even further, and Roy could feel his heart beating hard through his skin.  He was almost afraid the kid was going to have a heart attack.  He wondered how long he had been down there in that dark basement like that.  This had to be terrifying for him.

The curtain opened and Havoc came in with one of the State doctors that had come down when everything changed for the town. Dr. Tim Marcoh, one of the premier researchers of the State program, had come with Roy’s group to make sure the city’s medical system was up to State standards.  Finding the system well below standards, he ended up staying and taking over.

“Roy, good to see you,” the doctor said, looking over the boy in his arms.  “Granted, this is a strange circumstance.  Tell me what has happened?” he asked.

Roy retold the story, beginning with his encounters with Alphonse.  Marcoh nodded.  “I’ll sedate the boy before I try to examine him,” he said, grabbing a syringe and quickly injecting Ed in the thigh.  The boy tensed, but nothing more before he went limp completely in Roy’s arms.  Marcoh smiled and waited as Roy put him down on the bed.  “I’ll have the nurses clean him up before he wakes and we’ll put some fluids into him and some clean clothes on him.”

Roy left, stepping into the hall as the doctor and nurses cleaned him up and did the tests they needed.  After nearly an hour, the doctor opened the door and motioned Roy back into the room and shut the door behind him.

“What’s the verdict, Doctor?” Roy said.

Marcoh looked slightly ill as he spoke.  “He’s severely malnutrition, dehydrated, and he’s covered with scars and marks.  Some look to be surgically related, from what I can tell; the metal attachments are some sort of prosthetic as there is no limb under either of the metal limbs.  He’s suffered a lot of ill healed broken bones, and from what I can tell, he’s suffered a lot of physical abuse.  The eyes aren’t natural, and I’ve seen an effect like it before, but I’ll have to verify it before I make a determination.  I’ve ordered an MRI and CT scan, and I’ve sent out for extensive amounts of bloodwork and genetic tests to figure out what’s happened to him.”  The doctor paused, pinching the bridge of his nose for a long moment before he continued.  “And there’s signs of long term sexual abuse as well.”

Roy felt his stomach drop.  “How old is he; can you tell?” he said quietly.

Marcoh sighed.  “He’s in his late teens or early twenties, his wisdom molars have erupted already.”

Roy looked at him sharply.  “He’s tiny; he looks like a fourteen year old.”

“He’s been without nutrition most of his life, most likely he never developed correctly,” he said sadly, glancing at the curtained bed area.

Roy nodded.  “What now?” he said softly.

“This is beyond my skill, Colonel Mustang.  I believe you should first find out exactly what happened to the boy and why.  All I can do is treat his physical condition.  I’m going to warn you now, though, if this boy has been kept locked up since he was very young, and that is what it looks like, he may never recover, especially if he lacks basic skills and language as you suspect,” he said and nodded to Roy as he left.

Roy stood still for a long time before he pulled back the curtain and looked over the now cleaned up boy.  Twenty or older?  It had to be impossible that he was older than Al.  He was a lovely boy though, and Roy had to smile. Cleaned up, he looked to indeed have beautiful hair.  It reminded Roy of…  He paused.  No, his mind was not going to wander there right now, he thought, shaking the past from his mind.  The nurses had washed it and tied it up in a long braid.  Without all the dirt on his face, Roy was even more struck by how someone could do such things to someone. 

Behind him, he heard the door and Alphonse came rushing in with Hawkeye behind him.  Roy smiled as Alphonse grabbed Ed’s flesh hand and put his forehead to it, dropping to his knees beside the bed with a gasp of relief. 

“Brother!” he cried and turned and looked at Roy.

“Thank you, I didn’t know what to do, I…I went to see Ed, to help him with his reading, and…there was a visitor…and dad…he…” 

“Al, don’t, I know,” Roy said softly.  Al nodded and kissed the hand gently. 

“He was crying and I know he didn’t know the words for what he wanted to say, and that’s when I argued with Hohenheim because I wanted to know why he’d do something like that to brother.  He hit me and I dropped the books and he tore them apart because I wasn’t supposed to be teaching him those things…” he said softly, reaching up and brushing a hand over his brother’s blond head.

“Al, how old is he?” Roy asked.

“He’s my big brother,” Al said softly. “A year older than me, and he was born with the deformity, his arm and leg were just missing, and there were other things too.  Mother tried to protect him, always told me before she died that I had to take care of him.  Father, though, he hated him.  Maybe that’s why when Mother died, he snapped.  We moved and as soon as we were here, he put brother into the basement and said that he was trying to fix him, and it would be alright.  He promised me he’d make him better.  I was only six years old then, I believed him.  Brother couldn’t talk or walk, and he was blind.  When Father gave him sight, I thought he was telling the truth, that even though I couldn’t tell anyone I had a brother, I thought he was trying to help him.  He fixed his eyes.  But then…it just got worse.  He seemed driven by the success, so he started experimenting on him.  Different serums, different prosthetics.  He screamed so much I had to leave the house sometimes,” Al said, running his fingers over the metal melded to his brother’s shoulder.

“I would visit him when Father was gone even though I was forbidden.  I realized that he could talk, if someone just taught him, and he was smart now, not like before when he couldn’t do anything, so I thought Father was helping him, even though he caused him pain, he was fixing him.  But I was wrong.  He wasn’t fixing him.  He’s been using him to test things on, the things that he sells to the State,” Al said, sighing deeply.  “There were others, too, visitors that would come to the house and disappear downstairs for hours with father.  I…I don’t think they were there for good reasons.”

Roy glanced at Hawkeye.  “Like who?”

“Major Kimblee, and Major Tucker, I know came by a lot…” he said softly, glancing at him.  “That’s why I came to you.  I thought maybe you’d help him because if they knew I’d been there, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Roy looked at Hawkeye.  “Get back to the station, if we’ve got corrupt officers, they have to stay away from Hohenheim, they might try to…”

The door opened and Breda was standing there.  “Sir, Hohenheim is gone, he’s not in the interrogation room.”

Roy sighed and rubbed his head.  “Wonderful…” he whispered.


	2. Entreaty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First chapter got some edits, second chapter is first draft, there are some annoying errors I missed in the first *sigh* Hope you enjoy!

****

Chief Alex Armstrong was perhaps the single most imposing figure in all of Central City.  He stood over six foot and five inches in height, and was easily around the three hundred pound mark.  However, those three hundred pounds were worthy of a body builder, as the man was easily twice as broad as his new superior, Colonel Roy Mustang.  He very literally appeared to be capable of lifting a house.  He had, on occasion, lifted small houses.

His physical size and ability could be rivaled by none, however, neither could the size of the large man’s heart.  Chief Armstrong became a police officer to help people, coming from a long line of military and private sector police officers.  He had been in the war, though he had never encountered Roy during his time there, and had done things he wished to forget.  It seemed that he would spend his life repaying debts by helping those in need.  He took his position as the Chief very seriously, and every crime that was committed in Central City was a personal affront to him.

When the door of the precinct opened and a cursing and handcuffed Van Hohenheim was drug by him toward the interrogation room, he at first could not believe his eyes.  He blinked and watched as one of the young State men, Havoc, slammed the door and walked back out toward him.  He ran a hand over his nearly bald head, pausing to straighten his trademark blonde curl over his forehead as Havoc approached.

“Chief, we’ve got a situation,” he said quietly.  Around the precinct, everyone was staring at them.

“Havoc, what’s happened?” he asked, glancing toward the back where the town’s most eminent citizen had just been drug.

“Boss said to bring him in for interrogation.  Hold on,” he said, turning and waving at Hawkeye.

“Riza!  Bring the kid, we’re going to the hospital!” he yelled across the room.  Hawkeye nodded, stepping into Roy’s office and calling Alphonse out.

“Is that the young Elric boy?” Armstrong asked, very confused, but then his back grew taunt when he saw the black eye the boy was sporting.  Hawkeye stopped nest to them and Havoc turned to him and smiled.

“Alphonse, the Colonel’s at the hospital with your brother,” he said quietly so no one but the small group around them could hear.  Alphonse’s face relaxed and tears started falling immediately. “You don’t have to talk about it yet, Al, let’s just get you there.  I called on the way over and they said you won’t be able to see him for a while, but you can wait until they’re done. Take him, Hawkeye?” he said nodding to her. 

“Come on, Al,” she said, confused by the comment and still unsure what was happening.

“The Elric boy has no brother,” Armstrong said, watching them leave.

Havoc shook his head.  “That’s what that bastard in there wants you to think.  Don’t know the details, chief, Boss is waiting on something from the doctors.  All I know is we heard something in the house, went in for a wellness check, and the Colonel found an emaciated, dirty boy with blonde hair down in the basement.  I’m going back to sweep the house.”  He nodded to Armstrong and then grabbed Breda and Fuery and headed out immediately.

A boy? Armstrong’s thick hands made fists at his side.  He felt every eye on him, waiting to see what he’d do.  He grit his teeth tight and turned to the desk sergeant, Brosh. “Turn on the cameras in the interrogation room.  I will discover what has occurred in my town.”

Brosh, a young man with neat blonde hair, nodded and jumped up, nearly running over his wife Major Maria Ross, the officer in charge of the children’s welfare division. He disappeared for a moment to set up the instruments on the room and came back and nodded to Armstrong, who headed into the room with a man he thought he had known well for the last thirteen years.

Van Hohenheim was sitting with his legs crossed and his arms tight over his chest in obvious anger at the situation.  Havoc had removed his handcuffs, but the door only opened by fingerprint scan from the inside. Armstrong sat down slowly across the table from him.

“Doctor Hohenheim, what’s going on?” he asked slowly.

“I’ll tell you what’s going on, that bastard Mustang walked into my house without authorization!  He took what belongs to me and he had no right to do so!” he said, looking away.

Armstrong chewed his lip for a second before he ran thoughtful fingers over the blonde handlebar moustache he sported.  “What did he take?”

Hohenheim glared at him.  “That is none of your business, Chief Armstrong.  I suggest you let me out of her.  I have friends that will aid me should you not.”

Armstrong nodded.  “Havoc said the Colonel removed a boy from your house, another child that belongs to you.  You’ve lived here thirteen years, Van, and there has never been another child at your home that we knew of,” he said slowly.

“Of course not.  Why would anyone want to know about that dismal failure?” he muttered.  “I do not advertise things of inferior value as belonging to me, Chief, you know this.  That _thing_ is not human, you understand that?  He was born deformed and unable to even think.  I fixed what I could, but he is an inferior test subject any way I look at it,” he said, running a hand over his blond hair.  Armstrong’s face was set into an inscrutable mask.  He knew that outside, Ross and Brosh at least were watching this in the next room.  “It is mine to do with what I will, just like any other test material.  It is no more than a rat or a gerbil.  It has been useful, the prototype for the various nerve agents I’ve invented were tested through it.  The most successful were the optic nerve and cochlear nerve serums. I attempted to rectify the subject’s inferior intellect, however, that serum seems to have had no good.  The tests for the prosthetics were somewhat successful.  The next stage was going to call for me to remove the prototypes and install another set if the subject survived the process,” he said, glancing at his nails as he spoke.

“Why?” Armstrong said, his face beginning to ache, and feeling the building of extreme emotion in his chest already.   “Did you see opportunity when he was born with these issues?”

Hohenheim snorted.  “It was a failure from the beginning.  The serum I injected the amniotic fluid with was a prototype metabolic accelerator and cellular infusion vehicle. Afterward the infusion would bind to other compounds that I gave my wife, and it was supposed to change the mental capacity, reflex skills, and general genetic attributes of the fetus. Unfortunately, the subject was born deformed and nearly useless.  I salvaged from my failure, however, and continued using the subject to find cures for the deformities.  The blindness and deafness were easiest to cure, and the deformed limbs, of course, but it has the mental capacity of a flea, making it useless for anything other than physical studies.”  He paused.  “I made something of nothing.  I turned a complete failure into multiple successes. I should be commended for not throwing the thing that my wife gave birth to into the nearest incinerator.  At least my second attempt was more successful.  The metabolic accelerator was refined by the time Alphonse was in utero.”

Armstrong coughed, very nearly unable to hold himself back.  “You tried the same thing on Alphonse?”

Hohenheim rolled his eyes.  “Of course, I’m a scientist.  The first was a failure, but that was no reason not to continue my research.  She had insisted we would have two children, no more, so my window of access to a developing fetus was extremely limited.  I was able, for Alphonse, to give him a heightened immune system and give him advanced physical endurance.  Of course, his genius, I attribute to the serum but also to his pure genetic code he inherited from me.  Overall, Alphonse was a suitable result, though the results were much less impressive than I had hoped.”

Armstrong nodded and stood up slowly, opening the door and leaving the doctor alone in the empty room.  He didn’t hear the large man sobbing for the innocence lost on the two boys on the other side of the door.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

After a brief moment with his brother, Dr. Marcoh told Alphonse that they were taking Ed for the more detailed testing.  Alphonse honestly didn’t notice much as he was led to a lush looking waiting room.  He looked up to see the Colonel talking to the doctor and then leaving and he was alone.  He was going crazy with the waiting as almost three hours passed.  He swallowed hard for a moment before his phone buzzed in his pocket.  He picked it up and saw it was a message from his friend Ling Yao.  He debated for a long moment before he messaged him back saying he was at the hospital waiting if he wanted to come sit with him.  Ling immediately said he was on his way.

Ling and Alphonse had not met on the best terms, but eventually they’d become best friends.  Ling’s family was one of the founders of the city and an extremely wealthy family due to smart weapons sales during the recent war.  Ling hated the nickname he’d acquired, Prince, due to his family’s wealth, as well as his constant companion and bodyguard Lan Fan who was always quick to defend him to anyone.  While she was his bodyguard, it was well known once he was old enough he proposed to her.  There were no signs in public of their affection for each other than violent reactions to people insulting them.

After about fifteen minutes the pair was escorted into the waiting room.  Ling, his long black hair tied up in a high ponytail as usual frowned at the sight of his friend’s face. Lan, her own dark hair pulled back into a bun and framing her face as usual.  They did not look as though they expected to be in such a place when they’d been called to a hospital.

“Al, man, what is going on?” Ling said.  “What the hell happened to your face?”

Alphonse shook his head, touching his black eye absently, almost having forgotten about it.  “I have to tell you something.”

“Did your dad get hurt?  Is that why you’re here?” Lan asked, frowning at the fancy room.  “I guess he is a State made man, right, so they’d cover him for anything…” she said, trailing off as she looked out the window down onto the city.

“Not my dad…someone else…”  Alphonse leaned back on the sofa.  “My…my b-brother,” he said quietly, tears already filling the corners of his eyes again.

Ling sat down beside him with a shocked expression.  “What?  You said you were an only child?  Is it a brother you didn’t know about?  I mean, some dads are manwhores, you know, so it happens…”

Alphonse shook his head.  “No, you don’t…you don’t understand…I knew….”

Just then, the door opened and Dr. Marcoh came in with a nurse behind him.  Alphonse stood up as he approached.  Ling and Lan both glanced at each other and stood behind him.

“Alphonse, how are you doing, my boy?” Dr. Marcoh said softly, not looking as he flipped through the clipboard with the results.

“I want to know how he is,” he said quietly.  “And when I can take him out of here.”

The doctor paused and looked at him sadly. “Look, Alphonse, I’m not going to handle you gently.  I’m going to give you the facts.  We had to keep him under heavy sedation to even work with him.  He panics the second his eyes open.  He’s been kept in that basement for thirteen years,” he said, and Alphonse shivered at the gasp from Lan behind him.  Marcoh cleared his throat.  “I’ve finished the tests.  His entire DNA structure has been altered.  He’s been changed on the genetic level, several times, in fact.  These things, Al, they can only happen before birth.  Your father had to have done something before he was born to cause these sort of changes.  Whatever he tried caused the blindness, deafness, the hyper sensation, the other deformities.  My guess is that whatever experiment he tried was a failure and your brother suffered for it,” he said, rubbing his hands thoughtfully.

“Your father is known as an innovator with agents that cause rebuilding and repair of nerve tissues.  It is quite obvious that he used your brother as the catalyst to develop those substances.  That is the main reason he has been able to have so many discoveries so quick.  Human experimentation is absolutely banned by the State, not to mention the ethics of experimenting on his own child,” he said softly.

Alphonse nodded.  “Okay, so how do I help him?” he said, his voice trembling. 

Marcoh had a pained expression.  “Al, you can’t.  He needs to be put in an institution.  He’s never going to speak, never going to recover from the abuses he’s suffered, and there are parts of his brain that are completely dark on the brain scans.  There is nothing you can do, Al, nothing at all.  You’ve saved him more suffering at your father’s hands, so you’ve done a good thing, but all we can do is keep him on sedatives and hope that he can live out what’s left of his life in peace and without pain.”

Alphonse blinked at him rapidly for a minute.  “No, you’re wrong,” he said finally.

Marcoh stared at him.  “Pardon me?”

“You’re wrong.  I taught him his name.  I taught him how to read words.  He can say his name and my name. He’s twenty years old and he’s been kept a prisoner in his own mind and in that basement for the entire time.  I’m not giving up on him.  Father made him see and hear and he gave him something to fix his brain.  I can teach him,” Alphonse said, a deep frown lining his face.

“Son, I understand you’re upset, he’s your brother, but it is really for the best if you just let us…” Marcoh began.

“No!” Alphonse yelled.  “No, I’m not going to let you just give up on him!  I’m getting him out of this place and I’m going to give him a home, and help him.”

The nurse shook her head and left quietly as Marcoh sighed.  “I’m sorry, son, but you can’t take him out of here.  He’s in State custody, and whatever I say is what happens.  Your brother is a danger to himself and you if you leave with those metal prostetics.  He can crush bone in that hand.  He stays here until morning, and then he’s being transferred up-State to the State mental institution.  I’m sorry, son.  I really am.”

Marcoh left and Alphonse slammed his fist into the wall.  Ling put an arm around him.  “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry…” he started.

“No, take me to the police headquarters, Ling, please?” Alphonse begged.  Ling had a car and could get there quicker than if he walked.

Ling shook his head.  “Sure, but what’s that going to do?”

“Just take me, there’s someone there who can help, I know it,” Alphonse said as they left the hospital at a near run.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Roy had come back and started on the paperwork.  As he had been informed, Hohenheim was gone, and no one had any idea how.  Roy knew it had been Tucker or Kimblee, but he wasn’t going to reveal his hand just yet.  He watched the interrogation tape and was nearly sick at the things Hohenheim had said about his child.  It was like he wasn’t a child at all to him.  He was less than a testing animal to the scientist.  Then, to find out that he’d experimented on the second child as well…

Hawkeye insisted on getting the paperwork done early so they could find him faster.  Roy didn’t see how that had anything to do with finding the bastard.  As was often the case, Roy ended up falling asleep on his desk, pen in hand, halfway through a signature.

The door burst open and Roy started violent, knocking half finished paperwork everywhere and sending his pen flying.

“I’m awake, Hawkeye!” he called out, blinking sleepily for a moment while his eyes focused on Alphonse Elric and two dark haired teens he had with him.  “Alphonse, what…is something wrong with Ed?” he said the cobwebs burning away quickly at the thought that the boy he rescued could be in trouble.

“Colonel!  They’re sending him away tomorrow!  They’re sending him to some institute, locking him up and just going to wait for him to die!” Alphonse explained, both hands flat on the top of Roy’s desk and eyes wide with fear and emotion.  “I can’t let them do that to him.  He says he’ll never get better and he’s dangerous and I can’t stop him and…”

“Whoa!” Roy said, waving his hands at the boy.  “Whoa, slow down, come on!” he said, slowly standing up.  “Tell me what you want me to do?”

“Stop them!  They can’t send him away!  I’m the only one he knows, he’ll waste away!  He’s my brother!  I kept the secret far too long, and I’m not going to fail him now!” Alphonse said, glaring at Roy with a fierceness that the colonel hadn’t thought possible in the teen before him.

“I can’t just stop him, Al, he’s made a medical choice and…” he started.

“No!  You don’t get to say that!  You promised me to help him.  You promise, Mustang!” he practically snarled at the other man.  “You risked your life to go into that house without knowing what you’d find, you had to know it could be dangerous, and you, no one else, you walked out of there with him.  I know you did without you saying anything, you’ve got the bruises on your arm where he held you!” he exclaimed pointing to the dark marks on Roy’s bicep and peeking out onto his neck from under the edge of the sleeveless tunic he wore under his jacket.  “He doesn’t let anyone touch him without a fight, and he let you take him out of there, please, Roy, please, you can’t just give up on him!  He’s in there, I know he is!  He says my name and they say he can’t and won’t ever speak!  They’re wrong!”

Roy’s hand went to his bruised arm as he stared at the boy.  Alphonse was actively fighting tears.  “The others, when they came, they…they strapped him down to the table so he…he couldn’t fight them when they…they did things to him.  When I found out what Father let them do, when I got this,” he said, pointing to the still black eye.  “He was crying for me, Roy, for me, because they were hurting him and I told him people couldn’t do that to him.  I lied to him, I told him no one was going to hurt him, and they did!  My father let them!  I can’t…”

Roy had slipped his jacket on while Alphonse spoke and now he moved around and put his hands on his shoulders.  “Alphonse, stop,” he said quietly.  “We’ll go get your brother.”

Alphonse started to argue then realized that Roy had agreed to help him.  Alphonse grabbed the Colonel in a tight hug.  “Thank you,” he whispered.  “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, we haven’t pulled it off yet,” Roy said, rubbing the teen’s back for a moment before he released him.  “I’m taking one of my people with me.  Meet you at his room?” he asked.

Alphonse nodded and motioned to his friends and they were gone.  “Hughes!” he called loudly.  The bespectacled man with brown hair came around and looked at him questioningly.  “Time to go argue with medical.”

The new deputy chief, Maes Hughes, was a man good beyond measure.  He also constantly talked about his adorable daughter and his wife.  His desk was a maze of pictures.  Havoc was still at the Mansion Road house, so Maes it was.

Minutes later, the pair came to the hallway outside the room that Ed had been put into.   Alphonse and his friends were standing outside looking very worried over something.  Alphonse came at Roy in a run.  “They’re doing something, he’s awake, and he’s scared and they won’t let us in.”

Roy nodded, hearing a commotion from inside.  He reached down and pushed the door open. The orderly started to protest but saw who it was and stepped back.  Maes and the other three followed him into the room.  Marcoh was looking flustered and so were the three nurses trying to wrangle an extremely frightened Ed into a set of restraints that he had apparently already broken through once with his metal arm.

“Get him still, I’ll put him back out…” Marcoh yelled at the nurse trying to avoid being kicked by the boy.

Roy scowled deeply.  “Stop it, Marcoh, you’re scaring him to death!” he called.  Marcoh jerked his head around and saw the audience he had.

“I have to do this, Mustang, there’s no way to control him, he hasn’t even got the mind of an infant, he’s…” Marcoh grunted as he was pushed violently aside by Ed’s metal arm and he fell to his knees on the floor with a banging sound when the metal knee hit the hard floor.  He was trying to say something it seemed though, and he scrambled as quickly as he could toward Roy and Alphonse.  Thinking that he was going to his brother, Roy didn’t pay much attention to anything except keeping an eye on the doctor in the room.  He nearly jumped out of his skin when the boy wrapped both arms around Roy’s leg instead of Alphonse and stared with his glittering gold eyes up at him.

“R-r-roy…” he uttered finally and then buried his head into the front of Roy’s thigh. 

Marcoh stared in disbelief.  “There’s no way, there’s no brain function in the language centers, he can’t talk, there’s no way…” he started.

“Well, you’re wrong,” Roy said, kneeling gently down beside the boy.  He could feel the shaking and trembling through his body where he held to his leg.  “Maes, turn out the light,” he said.  Maes frowned but flicked off the bright overhead lights.  Ed’s body relaxed a bit and he turned his face up toward Roy again and his face seemed to shake and then he smiled at Roy.  Roy’s heart clenched in his chest then and there.  There was no way anyone was taking him again.  This boy had nothing to hold onto other than him and Alphonse right now.  Ed’s eyes began to mist and Roy put his hands gently on his face and nodded at him.

“Its okay Ed, its okay.  We’re going to a new home, you and me and Alphonse, okay?  My house is just big enough, okay?” he said softly, not really sure how much he understood. 

Roy leaned further and scooped him up into his arms again with ease and stared at Dr. Marcoh who was shocked completely speechless. 

“I’m executing State Seizure of a Person of Interest.  There’s nothing you can do to stop it, Marcoh.  He’s under my protection now, and unlike you, I am sure that he can be something more than he is,” Roy said as Ed’s face buried into the hollow of his neck and he felt dampness spreading outward onto his jacket.  He may not have understood the words, but Roy knew that the boy understood the meaning of what he said well enough.  He turned, nodded to Alphonse and his two equally shocked friends and headed out into the hallway, finding people staring at him nonstop.

Alphonse followed him to the car and watched as Roy settled him into the seat with a little effort after dislodging Ed’s hands from his arms.  Alphonse’s eyes were filled with tears.  “I…I just…”

Roy shook his head, sliding into the seat beside Ed, who had already covered his face but his hand found its way to Roy’s arm as soon as he was close enough.  “No, just follow us to my house.  We’ll figure this out,” he said as Maes started the car.

As they pulled away with Alphonse in the car behind them, Roy looked to the person beside him who had curled up against him as much as the safety belt would allow. 

“Maes, you’re going to have to take point on finding Hohenheim and finding out how deep his corruption goes into the locals.  I trust Armstrong but no one else,” he said softly, stroking the flesh hand that held his arm softly.  “Damn, this is going to be a lot of paperwork,” he muttered softly under his breath.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank every one of you that read this.
> 
> However, I do have a favor to ask. I'm looking to get my original Yaoi Novel, On the Training of Doctors, published this year. I would appreciate it if you would help make it a success. My original fiction is more detailed and polished, of course, than my fanfics, and I have both an amazing co author and artist. Please visit goo.gl/VS2QQs or look up On the Training of Doctors on Kickstarter.
> 
> And thanks to my muse, Miss SapphireTou who has some amazing character backstory inspiration and ideas for this one as usual.

Izumi Curtis kept to herself most of the time.  She had one child, a disabled boy named Aoya.  Aoya was born with severe immune deficiency.  Because of this, Izumi and her husband, Sig, had turned the attic into a clean zone for the boy since he was born.  When he was small, Izumi remained with him while Sig worked at the butcher shop that he owned.  The house had come with an intercom system and there was already a dumbwaiter that led to the kitchen.  Such things made it easy for Aoya to spend his time alone and in a clean zone but still able to talk to his family.  They lived on Forestside Road, right next to Mansion Road where Van Hohenheim lived. 

Izumi clicked the intercom from beside the dumbwaiter system in the kitchen.  “Hey kiddo, ready for lunch?” she asked.

“Yeah, mom, hey there were cops at the Mansion Hill house last night really late, and there’s someone still there this morning,” he said, obviously curious.  “Wonder what happened?”

Izumi ground her teeth together.  “Maybe Van got what was coming to him, sweetheart.  He’s not a good person.”

“You always say that, but never why he’s such a bad person,” he said, his voice a little distant as he walked away from the intercom.

Izumi chewed her lip for a moment then put the food on the dumbwaiter for him.  “I know, sweetheart, I know.  But it just isn’t something I like to talk about.  Coming up with your lunch, your favorite,” she said, trying to keep the tension out of her voice.  For a kid that rarely went outside and even less often saw other people, Aoya had a way about having intuition about people.  Sig, Izumi’s husband and long time supporter, was gone to work at the butcher shop.

“Oh, thanks mom,” Aoya said with an obvious smile to his voice.  He loved French toast for lunch.  She reached the com to turn it off but the doorbell rang. 

“I’ll be back, hon, the doorbell,” she said, turning and leaving.

She didn’t hear Aoya’s comment that it was the police as she opened the door for Hughes and Havoc.  “Gentlemen, what brings you by today?” she said, her brow scrunching.

“Ah, hi, Ms. Curtis?” Havoc said, smiling timidly.  He’d only met her a couple times.

“Izumi, please, come in, I’m putting on a hot pot for dinner later.  Some tea?” she asked, leading them into the kitchen.

Hughes smiled and sat down, pausing to clean his glasses on his shirt.  “Of course, thank you very much Izumi.”

Havoc followed suit.  “Yes, thank you very much.”

Izumi set down two cups of a fragrant green tea she grew in the back.  “Now,” she said, turning and chopping the vegetables, but keeping her eyes on the two police officers, “What can I do for you this morning?”

“Well,” Hughes said, sipping his tea and putting it down carefully.  “There was an incident at Van Hohenheim’s house last night.”

“So my son tells me.”

“Your son?” Havoc said looking around.  “Seriously, does everyone in this town have mystery kids?”

Hughes kicked Havoc under the table as Izumi turned around and looked at them both.  “What the hell does that mean?” she asked, seeing the blush rising to Havoc’s face.

Hughes sighed.  “Um, we’ll get to that.  Um, first I need to ask you what your relationship to Van Hohenheim was like?”

Izumi turned back to her chopping.  “We didn’t get along.”

There was a long pause before Havoc cleared his throat.  “Um, that’s all?”

“That’s all that is important,” she said quietly, rhythmically chopping.  However, both men saw the tightness in her shoulders.

“Well, anything could be important,” Hughes said, looking over his teacup at her.

“We knew each other.  We were both scientists.  When he moved to Mansion Hill with is son, I thought that Aoya would have a playmate.  Aoya is my son.  Aoya was born with a specific immunological issue that confined him for the first fifteen years of his life to pure clean rooms.  Any entrance of foreign bacteria would make him deathly ill.  He lost one of his arms and legs as an infant due to an infection before we knew he had to stay in a hermetically sealed room.  Since then, he’s had a transplant of the missing limbs and through intense therapy and medication he has the ability to leave his attic clean room now and then, for limited amounts of time,” she said almost mechanically. 

Hughes nodded.  “I see, what happened?”

She sighed.  “Something wasn’t right.  That gut feeling you get when this are just…off.  The boy, Alphonse, he would come down and play with Aoya, now and then, of course, the procedure to get into the clean room is a little involved, but Al didn’t mind, but then one day he told me his dad didn’t want him coming over.  He always seemed so sad for some reason.”

She paused again, turning toward them.  “I remember going down there and asking him what the hell his problem was.  He just slammed the door in my face, told me his son didn’t need to associate with deformed monsters like my son.  Something about he’d make a better test subject than a child.  I lost it, I screamed obscenities through the window at him.  I went back home, and I just couldn’t shake the feeling something was going on that he didn’t want me finding out about.  I ended up trying to break into the place a couple times.  I didn’t succeed, but a couple weeks later, I got seriously ill.  Took almost a year to get over it, and by then, I couldn’t do my work anymore.  I video conference with some people in the north now and then, and they carry on my theories and the like, but I can’t do the work myself since I was ill,” she said the words with a hollow tone to her voice.

“What did you do?” Hughes asked quietly.

“I am…was…a cellular biologist.  My specialty is cellular regeneration.  My work paved the way for Aoya’s limbs to be successfully transplanted,” she said, and the regret in her face was obvious.  “Now what does this have to do with the bastard?”

“Well, Colonel Mustang and I went there last night.  We told him that their neighbor had called about a break in, of course, you’re his only neighbor,” Havoc said softly, brushing a hand through his hair.

Izumi glared at him.  “That didn’t happen.”

Havoc shook his head.  “No, but…we needed an excuse to get in there.  Al came to Colonel Mustang, and he was scared but couldn’t say what it was.  We heard something inside the house, and Hohenheim didn’t want us in there at all.  Colonel went down in the basement after the noises and…well…he found another kid.”

Izumi blinked rapidly.  “What?” she said softly.

“I guess he’s Al’s older brother, he was born deformed as a result of Hohenheim experimenting on the mother prenatal.  When the experiment went back, Ed was born, deaf, blind, and missing two of his limbs.  He said he was a failed experiment and that he was worthless.  He said that he used him to create all of the serums that he’s produced over the last thirteen years,” Hughes supplied quietly.

“He experimented on his own child?” she said, her heart beating heavy in her ears.  She’d been right.  All those years ago, she’d been right.

Havoc nodded.  “He’s been fitted with these two metallic limbs, and he can see and hear, but he was kept from learning anything.  He can barely talk, and the doctor here says it is impossible for him to ever get better or speak.  But he can, he can say Roy’s name and he met him yesterday,” he said, smiling at her.  “But I don’t know…he’s used him for other things as well,” Havoc said, looking down at his hands.

Izumi frowned and looked between them.  “What does that mean?”

“We’re investigating, but Chief Armstrong said you were a good person to trust.  We think he was trading favors with some of the local officers so they would stay quiet and keep people off the property,” Hughes said with a sigh.

She stared for a long moment.  “Favors?”

“Majors Kimblee and Tucker, and we don’t know what kind of favors…” Havoc started.

“Those bastards,” she said, slamming the knife in her hand a good two inches into the table in front of the two police.  Both men jumped.  “I know exactly what that fucking perverted bastard Kimblee wanted.  And I know what the fucking sick bastard Tucker wanted.  How bad, is the question?”

Havoc glanced at Hughes who cleared his throat.  “Bad, just from the medical exam.  A lot of abuse.  Over a long time.”

Izumi ground her teeth again, this time audibly enough that both men feared for their safety.  “You’re here for a reason, other than to make me incredibly angry at that bastard.”

“He’s gone.  We’re sure that Kimblee or Tucker got him out of the station last night, but we have no way to pin anything on them.  Ed can’t even put a sentence together to tell us what happened.  Al says that he caught one of them, but it was all shadows, and he can’t be sure who it was, and he ended up with a  black eye for his efforts at trying to stop his father from letting him hurt his brother,” Hughes said softly.  “Obviously, neither boy can go back to that house, especially with their father at large.”

“You want me to take them in?” she asked, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest slowly.

Hughes shook his head.  “I don’t think that will be possible,” he started and shook his head as she narrowed her eyes at him.  “Not that we wouldn’t love to allow someone like you to do just that.  The problem is that he seems to have bonded with Colonel Mustang, and refuses to leave his side.  Even Alphonse can’t coax him away from Roy.  I think it would be detrimental to force him away from the only person he trusts at the moment.”

Izumi nodded.  “Yes, no doubt.”

“However, Roy isn’t capable of the type of teaching necessary, and while Havoc here, didn’t know about Aoya, I did, and knew that you have home schooled him most of his life, and you might be the best person to help him learn to talk, read, and other basic skills he lacks,” Hughes said finishing his tea.

“I see.  Have Colonel Mustang bring the boys by tomorrow morning.  I’ll set up the sunroom as a school room.  Aoya can come down and help for a while before he has to return to the clean room,” she said nodding to them.

Hughes nodded and stood.  “I appreciate it,” he said. “Oh, do you want to see  pictures of my beautiful little girl?” he said, reaching into his coat. 

Havoc grabbed him by the arm.  “No time, deputy chief, gotta go, thank you for the tea, Ms. Curtis, I’ll see you soon,” he said, shoving Hughes out before he could start gushing about his daughter.  They’d never leave if he didn’t get him away quickly.

Izumi watched them go and then sat down with a sigh.  “I should have done something…” she said softly.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Roy didn’t know what to do.  Honestly, he’d never been in this sort of situation.  He wasn’t what most people would call a people person.  He was more likely to make people annoyed and angry than happy, and he most definitely didn’t like children.  Of course, it wasn’t like the boy currently curled against his side wasn’t twenty years old.  He wasn’t a child, far from it.  Emaciated, beaten, traumatized and hurt, yes, a child, not so much.

Alphonse’s friends had gone back home, and Hughes and Havoc had gone to talk to the closest neighbor to Van Hohenheim’s house.  Alphonse was in the kitchen, having told Roy he would fix food for them all.  Roy had two bedrooms, and he assumed that the two boys could share the other room.  It was, however, looking more and more like Roy would have a bedmate.  For some reason, he didn’t find it all that distasteful.  It had been a few years since Danny…  He shook his head and blinked.  He didn’t want to think about that.  It brought back too many bad memories, and the reason he got called the Flame of Amestris.

“Okay, I don’t know what brother can eat, so I made a lot of things,” Al said, bringing a tray into the living room and sitting it down with a wide grin.

Ed looked at the tray and up at Al then clenched Roy’s arm even tighter.  Roy looked at Al who was trying very hard not to cry and keep a smile on his face.  “Father gave him nutritional injections and liquid nutrient mixtures he was testing.  I’m…I’m not sure if he even knows how to eat normally.”

Roy winced at the thought of not understanding something so seemingly simple. The report from Marcoh had indicated that his stomach was half the size it should have been for a person his age and size.  Roy nodded, leaning up and grabbing a piece of bread.  Ed watched him intently, clutching him as though afraid he was going to leave the couch.

Roy sat back and patted his hand with his free one.  “Ed, see?” he said, taking a small bite of the roll he’d picked up.  Ed blinked rapidly, the bright golden orbs focused intently on everything Roy did.  Roy offered it to him.  Tentatively, Ed reached out and took it in the flesh fingers.  He moved it to his mouth and mimicked what Roy had done.  He frowned as the sensation was obviously foreign to him.  Roy nodded, letting him experience it, but he choked when he tried to swallow it.

“Oh, whoa,” he said, turning more to face him at the panic on his face.  “No, you’re okay, just relax, chew,” he said, showing him with his teeth, “Then swallow.  It won’t be thin, but that’s okay, got it?”

Ed tilted his head to the side and did what Roy did, and swallowed after a moment, almost choking again, but this time managing the solid food for the first time.  He looked up at Roy with a somewhat shocked look on his face then smiled at him when he saw Roy was nodding and smiling at him.  Roy’s heart shot to his throat.  That expression looked so much like…  No, he thought, shutting down that train of thought.  No, must not go there.

“Good, good,” Roy said with a smile.  He gestured to the roll again and Ed tried another bite of it, this time getting the hang of it, and within a moment, he’d finished the small roll, much to the happiness of both Roy and Al. 

Ed smiled, but then put his hand on his stomach with a deep frown.  He looked up at Roy with a questioning look.  “Feel full?” he asked, touching his own stomach.  Ed tilted his head again, as though he was trying to absorb and process what was going on around him.  He picked up his shirt and stared at his belly for a second before grabbing Roy’s hand and putting it over his stomach. 

“Full?” he asked, blinking at him again.

Roy smiled.  “Yeah, I think so,” he said, feeling that his stomach was indeed taunt now.  Such a small amount of food…  Roy knew he couldn’t force him, though.  If he really hadn’t been given any solid foods and kept on only enough to keep him alive, it would be a long process. 

Alphonse handed Roy a glass.  Again, Roy looked at Ed and took a sip before handing it over.  It was milk, which would be a great thing for him to build up his system after being without nutrition for so long.  Unfortunately, it appeared they’d found the first thing that Ed did not like.  He no sooner took a sip of the white substance than he blinked spit it back out into the glass with a disgusted look on his face.  He looked up at Roy with a  sudden near panic on his face.

Roy took the cup gently and nodded.  “No, that’s okay, you don’t like milk, huh?”

Ed just stared for a moment until Al handed him another cup.  Ed looked into it suspiciously for a moment, and then sipped it.  He paused and smiled.  “Not milk,” he said carefully.   Again both Roy and Al grinned.  

“No, Ed, that’s juice,” Al said softly, picking up one of the pieces of cheese and eating it slowly.  Ed looked interested, but Roy could tell that he just couldn’t handle that much right away.

He took another sip and then frowned, setting it down carefully on the table.  “Full,” he repeated, putting his hand on his stomach again.

Roy nodded.  “Good, that’s good,” he said smiling.  Roy swore every time he praised Ed, the boy’s eyes lit up even brighter.  He wondered if he had ever heard kind words.  Something told him, Al was the first and only person to say something kind to him. 

Ed smiled and leaned into Roy and fell into a fitful sleep very quickly.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

The most familiar words to him were the ones he heard the most often.

“Failure.”

“Useless.”

“Worthless.”

“Be useful or I’ll kill you.”

“Don’t move.”

“Don’t scream.”

“Don’t fight him.”

They rang out in his mind endlessly.  Those were the words he knew for sure.  Those were the only ones he ever heard once he became able to do more than sense the world through touch.  The hearing had come first after an eternity of being in silence; it was like a constant buzzing in his head when he could hear the sounds around him.  Tiny sounds would be so very loud and scare him.  The buzzing of insects, the scurrying of rats and mice, they were just so very loud.  Loudest of all, though, were His words.  He was so very loud. 

He realized after the sounds began, the loud one, Him, was the one that made the world hurt so much.  He was the one that made his skin burn, and made his body feel like it was lead or something.  He didn’t know these words, of course.  He would have no way to explain these sensations, but he knew that he was miserable.  He didn’t understand why the world hurt so very much.  Flaring flashes of pain would spark through and through him.  It was always so very scary, and he wanted to get away from the pain.  He couldn’t, though, because the pain was inside him.

Then sight came after a week of pain that left him so drained that he couldn’t move any further. A burning liquid had pushed its way into each of his sightless eyes first, and he started to scream immediately against it.  It was as though every part of his face was burning and stinging.  After the week, his head was still on fire and his eyes which had never seen admitted light for the first time.  It seemed to cut through his brain with a fury unbridled.  He tried to push it away, but his body was kept tightly strapped.  It was before the metal limbs were connected to him.  He thought that this thing He called “sight” was painful.  Then, he began working on the metal pieces. 

“Don’t scream, you stupid creature.  You have no right.  You are a thing.”

He learned that screaming made the pain worse.  He equated screaming to more pain, so he stopped.  It was so hard, when the knives cut his skin.  When the arm and leg that were incomplete shouted pain at him, he couldn’t contain it, however.  He felt the cold metal at first, but then something snapped through his leg and shoulder that was like strips of fire sliding into his body.  No matter how hard he tried, the sounds escaped his lips until something was shoved into his mouth to stop them. 

Then He put him in another, softer place to lie down again for a while.  The pain was still there, it was duller for a while.  He didn’t have long, though before his world was again descending into pain of different kinds.

Then the Others came.  He hated the Others worse than he hated Him.

He was ruthless; He hurt him.  But the Others…

The first time the Other with the terrifying eyes was there.  He would giggle and laugh as he pulled away his clothes and cut into his skin and seem gleeful about the things he found.  He made man words for Him.  He could hear Him in the background.  For the Other, he did scream.  At least, at first.

“Don’t fight him; this is your payment for me allowing something so pathetic to live.”

He had hit the Other with the scary smile with his metal arm because he was doing something to him he didn’t like.  He didn’t understand, he didn’t want it.  But he was scolded and there was screaming and yelling as he was bound and the Other continued.  Somehow, this pain was different, and he couldn’t understand it.  He wanted it to end, and it did end, but only to begin again.

“You’ll stop this, or you’ll die.  Worthless.  This is your worth.”

Then Al came.  He would show him pictures and books and he felt so much inside that he couldn’t understand.  Then He would come back.  He wanted Al, not him.  And the Others would come, again and again, and he just wanted them to leave so he could see Al again.  Al was nice, he spoke to him, he didn’t yell, he didn’t hurt him.  Al said he was Ed.  Ed was a person, he told him. 

The Others and Him hurt him.

He fought them, and he wanted them to leave him alone, just alone, just alone.  They didn’t, though, they came back, again and again, and he couldn’t get away from them…

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Roy realized something was wrong when he started to thrash again.  He frowned and reached out to hold him tighter against him, knowing it was likely a nightmare that was hitting him.  He didn’t expect the violent reaction as Ed’s arms both impacted with his face.  Granted, the flesh one wouldn’t have hurt.  It was the metal one that broke Roy’s nose on impact.  Even so, he gritted his teeth together and bit back the yelp of pain as he spoke to Ed as soothingly as he could. 

“Ed, please, wake up, its Roy, remember?” he said, holding onto his struggling body so he wouldn’t hurt himself.  “Roy, remember?  No one will hurt you here, you’re safe, remember, it’s Roy!” he said, starting to worry.  What if Marcoh was right?  What if this was the best he would ever be?

Ed’s golden eyes shot open in obvious terror and he gasped and tried to pull away from Roy.  “Ed, stop, look at me, its Roy!” he said.  Al had gone out to pick up groceries while Ed slept.

Ed finally seemed to center on Roy’s face.  “Roy,” he whispered, relaxing enough that Roy wasn’t having to struggle to hold him.

“Yeah, there we are, remember, you’re with me now? Safe with Roy?” he said, pulling him gently toward him on the couch.

“Roy, Roy, Roy,” he whispered, then reached up and touched the blood leaking from Roy’s nose.  He looked shocked then looked down to see the metal hand stained with it already.  He winced and tears welled in his eyes.  “Don’t fight,” he whispered.  “Don’t fight him,” he repeated, looking away from Roy.

Roy fought back a sob of his own.  “Ed, no, no, stop, it’s okay, it’s good,” he said, pulling him into his side and stroking his head gently.  “Shh, don’t worry,” he said, feeling the boy trembling under him.  “Shh, please,” he said, grabbing a tissue and dabbing his nose clean of the blood while he brushed his hand repeatedly over Ed’s head. 

The door opened and Al came back in, stopping to put away the groceries he’d gotten first before he came into the living room again.

“Oh, gosh, Roy what happened?” he gasped when he came in to see Ed obviously upset and looking away from Roy as much as he could and Roy with a purpling nose and blood still crusting his nostrils.

“Ed had a bit of a nightmare,” he said, squeezing his shoulder softly.  “But I’m fine.  I’m worried he’s not, though.”

Al came forward and smiled at him.  Ed looked at Al and held out his hand that still had some of Roy’s blood on it.  Al put both hands over his metal hand.  “Ed, no, its okay,” he said nodding.  Ed nodded, looking over as Roy stood up, tipping his head back a bit to staunch the blood again. 

“Al, I’m going to shower, I got blood all over me, take care of him for a bit,” Roy said, heading to the bathroom in his bedroom.

Ed watched him go and then leaned forward and began pulling at his hair.  Al gasped, grabbing his hands and pulling them away from his head.  Ed looked up at him with teary eyes.

“Oh, Ed, you think he’s mad at you, don’t you?” he said softly. 

Ed stared for a minute before choking out a barely understandable “Roy” that made Al’s heart ache worse than he expected.  He had a feeling that this attachment wasn’t going away anytime soon.  Al stood up from his crouched position and pulled Ed to his feet and led him toward the bathroom where they could hear the water from the shower running.

“Roy, I think he’s afraid you left,” Al announced, trying not to stare through the smoked glass at the colonel. 

Roy pulled open the door and glanced out, seeing them standing there.  At Roy’s face appearing, Ed let go of Al and went forward immediately, pushing open the door and going straight into the shower and wrapping his arms around Roy’s soap covered body.

“Ah!” Roy said in surprise, the glancing down and sighing as now the boy was soaked through in his clothes.  “Um, Al, find him some clothes, I’ll go ahead and help him bathe while he’s in here,” he said softly as he could, knowing that the echo would be loud to the boy’s sensitive ears.

Ed looked up and Roy knew there had been tears in his eyes.  “Ed, hush, now look, you’re all wet.  Let’s take these off,” he said, reaching down for the buttons on the pajama top he’d been given at the hospital.  At first Ed flinched back, but then he looked up at Roy and let him unbutton it and pull it off, dropping it into the corner of the shower stall.  He then kneeled down and undid the tie on the pajama bottoms.  This action, however, got more of a reaction, and Roy barely stopped himself from being kneed in the face by his metal limb.

“Whoa,” he said, pushing his leg down and seeing the look across his face.  He’d pressed his back against the  wall and was just watching him.  “Ed, it’s okay, safe, remember?” he said softly.  Ed visibly swallowed hard and watched as Roy took the rest of the pajamas off and pulled them away.  “See?” Roy said, letting the water sluice over him without touching him.  He went back to washing himself off, stepping in front of the spray to clear his nose of blood as he popped it back into place.  It had to be the sixth or seventh time he’d broken his nose.

Ed watched him carefully and then tried to mimic him a bit, taking the cloth when Roy gave it to him.  Roy was quite thankful he had a huge shower installed.  Granted, the reasoning behind it was slightly perverse, as he did like the idea of showering with a partner and shower sex was even more ideal.  He did not expect to shower with someone like this, however.  He took down the sprayer and rinsed them both off then stepped out first, grabbing the towel and wrapping his waist then helping Ed out and wrapping another towel about his waist.  Al had brought some clothes and sat them on the edge of the counter.

Roy first dried and dressed himself while Ed stood and watched.  Roy had to admit, it was a little odd being watched like this, though he knew that it was important.  He supposed such simple routines as a shower were going to be strange to the Ed.  When he was done, he shifted Ed in front of the mirror and took a brush from the drawer that he’d bought for someone else a long time ago.  He’d never had a chance to give this gift, and he’d never brought himself to get rid of it.  He slowly brushed out Ed’s hair, smiling in thought as he remembered doing this same thing several years ago.  Slowly Ed seemed to relax under his brushing, and when he was done, he deftly pulled his hair up and braided it easily.  He then grabbed his clothes, and this time, Ed was able to help put them on better.

“Sleep?” Roy asked as he looked him over.  It was another set of simple pajamas, but this set was red.  Somehow it suited the golden eyed boy more than the pale blue ones.  Ed swallowed and nodded.  Roy led him to the room where Al was already getting in bed.  As Roy expected, he just looked up at him.  Roy nodded and took him back into his room.  He pulled back the covers and nodded to him, where he crawled up into the bed then watched Roy very carefully.  Roy smiled, turning off the lights and sliding into the bed slowly.  Almost immediately, he felt Ed move closer to him.  He reached out and let him put his head into the hollow of his shoulder and tucked his arm around him.

“Roy,” he murmured and then Roy heard his breathing even and deepen.  Roy smiled despite himself.  This may not have been what Danny meant when he died, but it was close enough, Roy guessed.

“Don’t die with me, Roy.”


	4. Learning

Garland Reed, or Greed as he was known to everyone else, wasn’t sure about the situation.  He hadn’t minded letting his cousin Envy (Noel Verdanis was his name, but everyone called him NV, so it became Envy).  Of course, he also didn’t mind his sometimes girlfriend, Lust, staying there either.  He was always amused by her wanting to be called Lust.  Her real name was Eugenia Luster, and she thought her name wasn’t sexy and made her sound old, so she decided to make herself the epitome of sexy.  There was plenty of room for them and more, actually.  The old farm house he had inherited from his family had six bedrooms, and a huge front room and dining room.  The front room and dining room were often used for Greed’s large parties that he invited everyone to on the weekends when he felt like it. So there was plenty of room.

However, letting Van Hohenheim hide out in the basement was pushing things.  Greed had no idea what was going on with him, but he’d come to him the night before and asked if he could stay there for a while until the heat died out on his house.  Greed had heard that the state police had raided the place.  He was pretty sure that Hohenheim had been trafficking custom drugs or something like that, but the less he knew the better.  Hohenheim knew that Greed had less than legal connections since both Tucker and Kimblee had been to his place.  Neither were allowed to come by anymore, but that was their own fault.  Tucker was just too damn creepy, and Kimblee, the dumb ass, had set off a pipe bomb and blew the hell out of one of the east walls.  Definitely no longer allowed at his get-togethers.

Greed had some pretty good parties, and everyone always had fun, but they weren’t illegal at all.  They just had a lot of fun, and sometimes in the summer, they would hold bonfires in the field.  Envy had come to live with Greed because Envy had had it with his previous roommates.  Envy was studying advanced computer programing, and needed a lot of time to study.  His aspiration was to become a licensed ethical hacker.  His roommates, though, thought that parties were places for violent drunks to fight and brawl.  He’d tried everything, but even with a locked door and headphones, he couldn’t get peace.  Then, one night his bedroom door got broken down during a massive fight between two party goers.  He’d been stuck, unable to go to his parents because they lived in a retirement condo.  Greed then offered him a room, and told him that his parties were enjoyable, and even the police chief Armstrong attended now and then.  Envy had packed while his roommates were in jail again.  Envy had the attic room, and everyone knew not to bother him if the door was closed.

Envy even had expressed a little trepidation about Van Hohenheim staying there.  As he put it, something was off about him, but he wasn’t sure what it was.  Greed had to agree.  He shook his head.  All he knew was that Hohenheim didn’t want to come in contact with the State people at all, and wanted to avoid the locals.  It wasn’t like the State guys came to the parties, though he’d invited them before.  Mustang had turned him down, and Greed was pretty sure he was thinking Greed was trying to bribe him.  Mustang was an odd man, and seemed overly cautious about everything.  He shook his head and chugged a beer as he sat on the sofa.

He looked up to see his newest houseguest walking through with a bucket of ice from the freezer.  “Yo, Hohenheim,” he called out.

The blonde turned a glaring eye on Greed.  “What is it?” he asked testily.

“Hey, man, just wanted to give you an FYI, we’re having the fall bonfire party in a couple weeks, I know you want to go without being spotted, so you might want to make arrangements before then, never know, those state boys may decide to show up for once,” he said, shrugging as Lust sauntered into the room and fell into his lap.

He arched a brow.  “Hey sugar,” he said, kissing her on the forehead as she lounged on him.

“Hey,” she said.  “Anyone cute coming to the fall party?” she said, playing with Greed’s collar with her long, manicured nails.

“Maybe, don’t know who’s coming yet,” he said, finishing the beer he was drinking before he tossed it at the recycling bin off to the side.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Hohenheim said, walking off toward the basement door.

Lust nuzzled against his neck.  “He’s strange,” she said, nipping at his neck.

Envy came through then, stretching his arms over his head with a yawn.  Greed looked over at him, “Yo, cousin, got a favor to ask.”

Envy came over, popping his shoulder as we walked.  As usual, he wore a skirt and a t-shirt.  Greed was pretty sure Envy didn’t pay attention to what he wore.  “What’s up?”

“Can you work that computer magic you have and see if you can dig up what the hell is up with that Hohenheim dude?  I’m worried about it, and I’ve had some sketchy people here before, but that guy…” Greed said as Lust ran a hand through his hair.

Envy nodded, pulling his long black hair up into a ponytail on his head.  “Sure, man.  I can do that, if there’s dirt on the bastard, I’ll find it.”

“Good,” Greed said, looking off after the direction to the basement stairs.  He had a bad feeling about the whole thing.  Really bad.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

It was soon quite obvious that Ed was not going to let Roy out of his sight.  Al thought it was actually quite adorable, even though it seemed that Roy thought Al would be against the attachment.  Al had a feeling that their companionship would be a long and productive one if things kept going in this fashion.  He was still worried, though, that their father was out there.  What he was capable of, Al was no longer sure.  He knocked gently on Roy’s bedroom door and heard the muffled response.

“Um, Colonel, we should be going to Ms. Curtis’s house soon.  She’s expecting us at nine am,” he said.

“Okay, um, Al, can you find clothes for your brother?” came the muffled words a few seconds later.

“I’m not sure, I don’t have much that fits him…” he said slowly.  “I’ll find a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, it will be baggy on him.”

A few minutes later, Al returned and knocked again, hearing Roy tell him to enter from the other side.  He went in and blinked at the sight.  Roy was half dressed, his nose still purple from being decked the day before, and sitting on the end of the bed.  Ed was laying half on his lap and half on the bed, clutching his leg, completely nude.

“What happened here?” Al asked from the doorway.

Roy looked up at him with his eyes still tired.  “Apparently, Ed has discovered that using the bathroom is a nerve racking experience, as is the idea that people go into bathrooms alone.”

Al tried not to, but ended up smirking anyway.  “What happened to his clothes?” he asked, not seeing the red pajamas anywhere.

“Honestly, I don’t know right now, let’s just get over to the Curtis’s,” he sighed, reaching for the clothes Al was holding. 

It took a few minutes of convincing, but they managed to get Ed in the new clothes, which hung off his thin body ridiculously.  Roy managed to get into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt himself and finally they were out the doorway and headed toward Izumi Curtis’s home.  Roy was already exhausted when they arrived, but then the last few days had been exhausting. 

“You’re late,” she said when she pulled open the door.

Roy arched a brow.  “Yeah, I know.”

She glared at him a moment and then stepped back, letting the three of them enter.  She led them to a large sun room where her son, Aoya sat on the floor with a few books laying out and open.  Beside him sat a sphinx cat with a black and white knitted sweater on its hairless body.  Both Aoya and the cat looked up as Izumi and the three newcomers came into the room.

“Aoya, you remember Alphonse, don’t you?” Izumi said as she sat down.

“I do,” he said, smiling at the sandy haired boy.  “Hi Al, how are you?”

“I’m okay,” he said shyly, and sat down out of the way on the side of the room to watch.

“This is Roy Mustang, and apparently Al’s brother, Ed,” she said, looking at the figure clinging to Roy’s arm.

Roy pushed Ed into the room a little ways.  “You, go sit with Aoya, Ed, I’m going to sit over here by Al,” he said, nodding toward Al’s seat.  “I’m not leaving.”

Ed’s golden eyes flittered around the room and he swallowed nervously, moving slowly to where Aoya was sitting on the floor and sitting down, his metal leg making a strange sound on the hard floor.  He started at the noise and looked at Aoya before looking back at Roy again.

Izumi shook her head.  “He’s the spitting image of Hohenheim if I ever saw one.  No doubt that this boy’s that bastard’s son,” she said, chewing her lip for a moment in thought.  “Thin as a rail, but that’s to be expected.  “Ed, look at me,” she said, her voice taking a more commanding tone.

Ed’s eyes snapped to her, wide and unblinking.  “Marcoh said he didn’t have a hope of learning anything when I talked to him this morning,” she said thoughtfully.  “He’s wrong.  The boy’s feral, not an idiot.  He just needs to be taught.  How much he can learn will be determined by his intelligence, though,” she said.  “So we’ll see.”

Aoya looked at Ed and smiled.  “I’ve got replacement limbs too,” he said, pointing to his arm and leg which were slightly darker than the rest of his body.  “My mom helped me get them.  Though metal is cool,” he said, reaching out tentatively and touching Ed’s arm. 

Ed watched then touched the arm that Aoya had touched him with.  Izumi smiled, reaching into her bag and pulling out a binder.  “Ed, I need you to pay attention to me now,” she said, and Ed looked back to her.  She held up a card, on it was a series of images, and Ed needed to pick the next one.  “What comes next?” she asked, then pointed to the correct answer.  She held up another card, similar, and repeated the process. 

“Now, Ed, I want you to tell me the answers,” she said, holding up a card for him to see. 

After a couple hours, Aoya had gone up to his clean room, and Ed had finished the visual test.  The cat, named Gremmy, had moved into Ed’s lap and Ed was petting him with a smile on his face.  Izumi scored the testing.  Without a handle on language, Izumi had to rely on nonverbal tests.  It wasn’t as accurate of a measure of Ed’s potential, but it would have to do for the time being.  What she was finding, though, was phenomenal.  Roy, during the long testing, had fallen asleep in his chair, head back and arms crossed over his chest.

“Mustang!” she said suddenly.

“I’ll do my paperwork!” Roy said as he started to wakefulness.  He blinked and looked at Izumi.  “What?”

“Marcoh doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about.  This boy’s intelligence…I can’t be sure, but he’s got the potential to far exceed his own father.  The only thing stopping him is the lack of teaching.  In the time I’ve sat here with him, he’s learned how to interact with a cat that he’s never seen before, figured out how to manipulate the answers on an advanced visual screening test, and managed to put together a tangram puzzle for high school students…” she said, looking over where he was moving the pieces of the puzzle around again into different shapes.

Roy shook his head.  “What’s that mean for him?” he asked, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees while he watched Ed.

“It means, the boy is a genius, possibly more intelligent than anyone we’ve ever seen here.  The problem is, getting him to the point he can use that incredible intelligence for something other than putting together a child’s puzzle,” she said, sighing.  “You’ve seen him do this already, haven’t you?”

“He learns quickly,” Roy said, watching as Ed reassembled the shapes.  “He figured out how to eat the first time I showed him, and he’s picked up how to dress already.  I’d think if he wasn’t smart, he couldn’t pick up those things after only seeing them once or so.”

Izumi nodded.  “It is remarkable.  The fact that he’s advanced so quickly just since you rescued him from that terrible place,” she said quietly.  She turned and looked at him fully now.  “What happened to your nose?”

Roy smiled sheepishly.  “Oh, Ed had a bit of a nightmare,” he said, reaching up and touching it gently.

Ed looked up then and pushed himself to his feet.  He went over to Roy and crawled up onto his lap, straddling him and hugged him.  Roy wasn’t sure what to do, but just put his arms around him and held him for a long moment.  Then he looked up and touched Roy’s nose with his trembling flesh index finger gently.

“Sorry, hurt,” he said in a hoarse voice.

Roy smiled.  “Oh, Ed, don’t worry.  It was an accident.  Soon, you’ll be able to tell me about your nightmares, and we’ll make them go away together,” he said, reaching up and brushing a hand over Ed’s head softly.

Izumi caught the look on Roy’s face, and so did Al.  They exchanged a look with each other, a knowing look that spoke volumes.  There was more to what the colonel felt than just wanting to protect someone vulnerable.  There was something much deeper there.  There was some connected that went beyond a simple caretaker position for the colonel.  Could it be that he had left himself open to something more?  Izumi’s eyes narrowed at him.

“Mustang, I’m going to warn you one time about what you’re doing.  If you don’t tread carefully, you will shatter him.  And if you do that, I will break you,” she said, glaring at him hard enough that he felt there was no doubt in her words.

“I know,” he said simply, brushing a hand over Ed’s head again as he put his head down on Roy’s shoulder.  “I think we need to get you clothes, Ed,” he said, pushing Ed up slowly.  “You can’t go around wearing Al’s stuff; it is way too big.”

“Clothes?” Ed repeated, his brows meeting.

“Are you sure that’s safe with Hohenheim still out there?” Izumi said, standing up and putting away the testing materials.

Roy nodded.  “If he comes out in public, he’ll be arrested.  Something tells me that he’ll be in hiding at the very least, and far away from Central city if he’s as smart as he believes himself to be.”

After a moment of dislodging Ed from his lap, Roy had managed to get Ed up and to the car.  Al said he would stay and go up and spend time with Aoya in his clean room since he hadn’t seen him in a while.  Roy bid him and Izumi goodbye and drove into the shopping district of town.  Ed stared at his hands while they drove, refusing to even look out the windows at the scenery for some reason.  They stopped at the largest clothing store and he got out first, and then helped Ed get out.  Ed was still a bit unsteady on his feet, but he tended to cling to Roy because of it.

As they entered the store, everyone seemed to stare at them.  Roy knew it was a combination of things.  Roy’s disheveled appearance, for one, was odd.  He was never seen in public without his uniform on and in a pristine condition.  The added bonus of the bruised nose, of course, made people stare.  Then, he was being held onto by another person, and Roy had never been seen in public with another person.  Ed’s appearance, nearly emaciated, bruised and in way too big clothes, made him an immediate mark for staring and muttering. 

Despite this, Roy headed to the counter.  “I need to have measurements done and a wardrobe for Ed.”

The lady behind the counter, nodded.  “Oh, yes, yes, come back, let’s get him…her?” she said, looking at Ed.

“Him,” Roy said, following her to the back room. 

“Oh, I’ll get the male tailor…” she said, starting to duck out.

Roy stopped her.  “Actually a female would be better in this situation,” Roy commented, smiling at her. 

She blinked.  “I don’t understand.  Usually our clients prefer the same sex to their own for their tailoring…”

Roy nodded.  “I know, but Ed is a special case.  He’s in a delicate state, and he doesn’t react well to males he doesn’t know yet.  It would be easier on him, and you, if it were a female that worked with him.”

She frowned and nodded.  “I’ll get Danielle, then…” she said, ducking out of the room.

Ed was stading in front of the mirrors looking at himself while Roy sat down in the seat to the side.  A moment later a short, red haired woman entered the room with a measuring tape around her neck.  She glanced at Ed then back to Roy.

“Aren’t you the one in charge of the police?” she asked, frowning.

“Colonel Roy Mustang, yes,” he said, nodding.  “I brought Ed here for some clothes.  He doesn’t have anything right now.”

“Ed?” she said, frowning and looking at the short, blonde boy.  “He’s been starved,” she said as soon as she came up beside him.  I can size him, but if he’s being fed appropriately, his size will change drastically.”

Ed looked at her and smiled.  She stepped back.  “He has a metal arm and leg.  Colonel Mustang, I need to know what is going on here, I’ve never seen this child…”

“He’s twenty,” Roy said without thinking.  “And yes, I know you haven’t seen him before even though he’s lived here for the last thirteen years.”

The tailor turned and stared at Roy for a long moment.  “But he looks like…” she said then stopped.  “No.”

“Yes,” Roy said.  “He’s staying with me, and he needs clothes, his brother’s clothes, as you can see, are far too big.”

She nodded, and quickly measured Ed, with only a few tense moments when he jerked away violently from her.  After a few minutes, she brought back in a selection of clothes, and Roy helped him try on several for size.  Most were a bit too big, but they would need to be for when he put on a normal, healthy weight.  They headed out with several large bags, and Ed dressed in a black pair of slacks and a red t-shirt.  He seemed happy, though, and by the time they got home, Roy was really exhausted.

Roy dropped the bags and fell into the sofa.  “Ugh!” he muttered and laid back.  He was surprised when he felt Ed’s weight climb on top of him.  He looked down to see that Ed had crawled up onto the sofa beside him and was wedged now between him and the back of it.

“Ed, what are you doing?” Roy said, smiling.

Ed looked at him, golden eyes wide.  It struck Roy that Ed was perhaps the most honest and naïve person he’d ever known, and how delicate he truly was.

“Love Roy,” he said finally and then buried his face in the hollow of Roy’s shoulder.

Roy was stunned for a moment before he sighed; heart beating hard in his chest.  “I love you, too, Ed,” he said softly, threading his fingers through the gold hair spread out behind Ed.


	5. Attaching

**Chapter Five**

_Attaching_

Greed had everything ready for the party tonight.  It had been almost three weeks since their latest houseguest had joined the household.  To be honest, the three of them hadn’t seen much of him.  He spent all his time locked in the basement doing who knew what.  He had just sat down in the kitchen to read his paper when Envy came into the room and sat down with a huff across from him.

“Something wrong, Envy?” Greed asked, putting down the newspaper.

“You bet something’s fucking wrong,” Envy grumbled, passing a file folder over the table to Greed.  “That fucker down in the basement needs to leave.  Now.”

Greed frowned and pulled the manilla folder to him.  He opened it.  “What is all this?”

“You wanted to know about him, I found out.  It is horrible, Greed, like a goddamned trainwreck, I couldn’t stop reading about this guy.  He’s more than bad news, he’s a huge liability and you need to get him out of here,” Envy said, running a hand over his spikey black hair.

Lust came into the room, dressed up for the party that would start in the next few hours.  She’d put on a nice fall themed outfit, looking more like a pin up poster than anything else.  She wore a brown dress that flowed down the back in a short train, and was bunched up at the top of her thighs in the front, accenting her long, shapely legs.  The top was a bustier that showed off her assests well, but not so much that it looked like she was over exposed.  Over this, she’d put on an orange and red shawl to cover her bare shoulders.

“What is this?” she asked, leaning over Greed’s shoulder.

“Stuff on that Hohenheim,” Greed muttered as he read through it.  “Whoa…”

Lust sat down next to him and arched a brow.  “What is it, baby?”

“Envy was looking up why he was running.  Listen to this, it says that he was let go from a big university in Xerxes because his ethics were ‘not in line with’ their ethics.  He’s written lots of papers on the fallacy of keeping inferior humans alive as more than testing subjects.  He claims that any born with ‘inferiorties’ should be put to death at birth or given over for scientific research.  There were rumors that he was caught doing human experimentation illegally and that was the real reason behind his being let go.  He came to Amestris and was immediately employed by the state as a private researcher, given funding for his personal lab.  This conspiracy theorist here suspects he never stopped human experimentation…” he said, thumbing to the end of the first stapled paperwork.

“It gets worse.  The next one is why he’s fucking on the run,” Envy said, rubbing his eyes.  “I’m going to have to fucking watch every goddamned Tim Burton movie I own in a row to scrub this shit from my brain.”

Greed arched a brow.  Envy was a huge fan of Tim Burton, and it was his “happy place”.  When stressed or upset, one could always find Envy watching something Burton had done.  For him to feel like that…

“A warrant has been issued by the state of Amestris for the order of capture and detainment of one Van Hohenheim in connection to several heinous charges.  Van Hohenheim is charged with two counts of prenatal genetic manipulation, one count of severe child abuse, one count of severe child neglect, one count of solicitation for prostitution of a minor, one count of greivous human experimentation without consent, one count of assault on a state official, one count of genetic manipulation without consent, one count of illegal containment of a minor, one count of illegal containment of an adult, several counts of falsifying legal documents…wait a minute…I thought he had one son…two counts of prenatal genetic manipulation?” Greed said looking up at Envy.

Envy nodded.  “I got a copy of the state police report, the ‘raid’ that you thought was for drugs?  Might want to look at the report, Greed.”

Lust gasped as soon as Greed flipped the paper to the first sheet.  There was a photo on the first page of Ed when he’d first been taken to the hosptial.  It was one of the early ones where they had sedated him and taken a full body shot covering only his groin with a paper covering.  His eyes looked unfocused from the sedation, but the bruising and scarring were apparent in the bright light of the hospital

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Greed breathed out.  “Report filed by Colonel Roy Mustang, State Police Commissioner for Central City.  After a report of possible intruders in the area, they went into Van Hohenheim’s house and found he’d been keeping his older son captive and using him as a human experimentation subject for the thirteen years he’s lived in Central City.  Edward Elric, age twenty, was found in the basement area of the house located on Mansion Hill.  He has a metal prostetic arm and leg, and was unable to speak due to the fact he had been kept captive with no access to education of any kind.  Reports show that Hohenheim used his son to manufacture almost all of the medical advancements he has been credited with over the last twenty years.  Amestris Ethics Board has met and decreed he should be captured and transported to the headquarters as soon as possible, but he is still at large.”  Greed flipped through pages.  “Confidential reports indicate that local police officers may be responsible for releasing Hohenheim from police custody and likely were participants in the illegal experimentation, torture, and abuse of Edward Elric.”

“So, that’s why I started looking into the police,” Envy said, sliding a second folder over to him.

Greed wasn’t sure he wanted to know any more.  “This is on Kimblee and Tucker,” Greed commented.  “You think they’re the ones that the police think are involved with him?”

Envy nodded.  “Oh yes, I know it.”

Greed frowned.  “Kimblee left his home town after reports of several suspicious fires and a few unsubstantiated reports of sexual and phsyical assault. No charges were ever officially filed, but Kimblee was picked up on five occasions for questioning. Tucker’s wife and daughter both mysteriously disappeared at the same time, and soon thereafter Tucker was accused of possible illegal human experimentation when he submitted two artifical life forms that were created from human cells to his university for his dissertation. He left after the creations died, and he had the bodies incenerated before anyone could examine them.”

“I thought they were creepy,” Lust said, wincing at the photos of the strange, short lived creations Tucker had presented.

“He needs to go,” Envy said.

“But someone like this, Envy, I can’t just kick him out, what if he goes psycho on us?” Greed mused, frowning and rubbing his head.  “I know, Mustang.  He turned down the invitation before, but maybe he’ll agree to come this time if he’s still trying to take care of that kid of Hohenheim’s.”

Greed leaned back and snagged his phone from his pocket, dialing the number for the police chief, who he already knew was attending that night.  “Hey, Armstrong, bud, is Mustang coming tonight?” he said into the phone.  “Um, yeah, I heard that he was taking care of that…look, I really think the colonel should come.  I can’t say more, but it might help his mission,” Greed said with a grin at the others and then he told Armstrong farewell.  He put the phone away.  “Something tells me he’ll be here.”

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

“I don’t know, Armstrong.  Do you think it would be the best thing?  Ed’s come a long way, but is a party really a good idea?” Roy said as he sat at his own kitchen table talking on the phone with the police chief.

“I’m certain!” Armstrong responded firmly.  “The boy needs to be around others, and Hughes is taking his family.  Greed’s parties are always a very good time, and he doesn’t allow drunken debauchery, especially before sunset!”

Roy nodded.  “Only if he wants to go.  I’ll speak with you later,” he said, putting down the phone and looking in the livingroom were Ed had laid down on his stomach and was working on writing.

It had been three extremely long, exhausting weeks for everyone involved with rehabilitating Ed.  His incredibly quick mind caught on to things far faster than anyone expected, even Izumi.  He seemed to absorb everything around him at an impossible rate, including things they rather he not absorb.  It was more than that, though, Ed actively wanted to know things.  He sought out information if it wasn’t provided, meaning he would grab anything he could find and try and read it.  Physically, he had filled out, putting on a resonably appropriate weight, though he hated milk in any of its forms.  Marcoh had confirmed he’d never gain any height, all his growth plates had fused at five feet and one inches.  Izumi had finally convinced Marcoh that Ed was not a lost cause after sharing the information while she was working with him.  He still worried that he was a danger to himself and others, but he at least stopped speaking of it in front of Ed.

Suddenly, Ed got up and came into the kitchen and stared at Roy, a book he had been looking through left behind.  This was another thing they had yet to get him to stop doing.  He never would say things to people; he’d just stop and stare and wait to be asked to speak.  Roy looked up at him.  “Hey, Ed.  What do you need?  Al’s gone to the store.”

“Why did that man put his…his…” he stopped, finding the word elusive.  He moved forward and touched Roy’s crotch.  “That.  Why did he hurt me with that?”

Roy’s heart bottomed out suddenly.  There was something he had  hoped wouldn’t come up for a while, and he had hoped it was with Izumi, or Al, or anyone but him.  They hadn’t even gotten to biology yet, and Roy honestly wasn’t wanting to be the one to explain the birds and the bees to him, and why someone would force themselves on another.  Explaining to him what Hohenheim had done, the experiments, and treating him like a test subject instead of a human being, that had been easy.  This, however, this was another thing entirely.

“Ed, um, oh, ah, that was wrong.  Hurting someone is wrong, everything they did that hurt you was wrong,” he said, trying to circumvent the entire subject.

Ed’s brows scrunched.  “Hitting people hurts both people.  But cutting someone only hurts the other person.  Does hurting someone with that hurt someone or is it like cutting them?  Is it a tool like a fist or a tool like a knife?” he asked thoughtfully.

Roy felt blood rush to his face.  Not getting out of this one, he thought.  “Ed, there’s more to it than just that.  This,” he said, gesturing to his crotch, “Um, this is something that can be done between two people and it makes both people feel good, something called sex, or making love for some.  And, ah, if someone tries to make another person have sex without their permission, it hurts the other person and is very wrong.  It is taking something from them without their concent.”

Ed tilted his head to the side, golden eyes distant in thought.  “It feels good when you want to do it, this making love or sex then?”

Roy nodded. “Yes, it is a very pleasant thing when two people want to do it together.”

“So it doesn’t hurt?” Ed said, frowning.  “When you want to do it?  It feels good?”

Roy grinned.  “Feels really good, most people like to be in love with the person they do it with, you know, and they can get married and if they’re a man and a woman, they might have a baby.  Of course, two women or two men can be in love and do things like that too, just things work differently.”

Ed seemed to process it slowly, digesting each thing that Roy had said to to him.  “So making love is a thing for the one you love the most?” he said finally, looking up at Roy with wide eyes.

Roy nodded.  “I guess you could say that.  I mean, some people just like to have sex because it feels good, but to me it was about being with the one you love the most.”

Ed thought about it again.  “So, do you love someone the most?” he asked, looking at Roy with a completely wide eyed innocent face.

The blush rising to Roy’s cheeks told a story his voice couldn’t.  “I…Ed, this is a hard topic to talk about just like this, love and all of this, it is so complex.”

“I love someone the most,” Ed said, looking it at Roy.  “But the bad man didn’t love me the most.  So why did he do that to make it hurt so much?”

Roy rubbed his hands over his face and blinked.  “Bad people use it as a weapon and hurt people, Ed.  See, look,” Roy said and put his hand gently on Ed’s face, caressing it.  Ed turned into the touch.  “My hand can touch you softly, and you like the feeling.  But the same hand can turn into a fist and hurt someone too.  We are capable of much love or violence with our bodies, Ed, it all depends on how you use it.”

Ed placed his metal hand over Roy’s hand with suprisingly gentle pressure.  Three weeks had taught him almost full control over the metal limbs.  “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Ed said quietly, stroking the back of Roy’s hand.

Roy smiled and nodded.  “I know.  I’m happy that you don’t want to hurt anyone Ed.  Oh, we were invited to a party, would you like to go?” he said, changing the subject, hopefully. 

“A party?” Ed asked, putting his hand back down.

“Yes, I’ve never gone, but it is a fall party, and many friends will be there.  I think it might be time for you to make some friends other than me, Al, Izumi and Aoya.  Would you like that?” Roy asked, moving his hand to push a loose strand of hair behind Ed’s ear.

“If you stay with me,” he said softly.  “I don’t want to be alone.”

“I know, Ed, that’s fine, I won’t go anywhere else,” he said.

Suddenly, Ed lurched forward and hugged Roy tightly.  “I love you the most, Roy,” he said quietly before he let go and disappeared back into the living room.

Roy was left with his heart fluttering in his throat.  He hoped that what Ed said was true, because he knew for a fact that he had fallen in love with Ed.  It was killing him because he knew that Ed was nowhere near ready to even hear that from Roy.  All Roy wanted to do was hold him, kiss him, love him…and he couldn’t. 

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Roy had been invited many times to the larger parties that Garland Reed threw on his property.  He’d been invited to a few of the smaller weekend get togethers, and he’d never taken the man up on it.  However, he knew that Hughs and Armstrong had both been to a few, and it seemed like a good chance for Ed to get some much needed socialization.  They drove up the long drive to he farmhouse.  It was an old place, but well taken care of.  Roy could see several other cars already parked in the parking area that had been set up, and there were several people milling around outside.  Roy pulled in and looked next to him where Al sat, nervously looking around and glancing at Ed every now and then.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Roy?” he  said. “Do you think he’s ready for this?”

Roy nodded.  “We’ll be here with him, Al, don’t worry so much.”

Roy had gotten both the Elrics dressed nicely for the occasion, after all, it was their first outing.  Al was wearing a blue polo shirt, and a pair of tan slacks.  Roy had dressed Ed in a pair of dark, heavy pants that he seemed to prefer over shorts, and a button up sleevless black shirt.  He’d grabbed a red coat that Roy had picked up one day coming home from the station.  He’d worn that coat at least a little while every day since Roy’d brought it home.  Roy himself had dressed in jeans and a loose button down shirt.  He opened the door for Ed who got out of the back seat very slowly.  His eyes took in everything around him as he moved, though. 

Roy had noticed that not only was he fast at learning, he was keenly observant of everything.  He seemed to pick up all the details on the world around him, even things that normally people didn’t notice.  One of the things that he had said that worried Roy was that he “remembered everything”.  Izumi and Roy weren’t sure yet if that meant he had an eidedic memory or not.  If he did, the trauma he had endured would be permanently etched in his mind in excrutiatingly precise detail.

Ed grabbed Roy’s forearm though, as soon as someone walked by them.  The reaction was instant and reactionary.  Roy gently put his hand on Roy’s and smiled to himself.  He hadn’t gripped his arm hard enough to even bruise.  He looked up to see Hughs headed toward them chasing his little daughter.  Roy smiled at them as they ran past. 

“She is little,” Ed commented as he watched the little girl outpace her father easily.

“She is, I think she’s turning three years old this year,” Roy said as he led Ed toward the house. 

Ed glanced back toward the little girl again.  “When I was that small, I didn’t have eyes yet,” he said almost casually. 

Roy didn’t say anything for a moment.  He wasn’t sure if that was a thing that he should respond to or not, but they had arrived at the door, which was open for the people who were arriving.  Roy and Al had decided to arrive a half an hour early so there would not be as many people milling around when they arrived.  They entered the large house to the open foyer where Greed was laying out several plates of snacks for everyone to have as they came in to enjoy the fireplace.  The fire was already going as the evening’s chill had already begun to set in for the night.  As they entered, Greed looked up, noting that Roy had arrived.  He smiled and came forward, extending his hand to the other man.

“Roy Mustang, good to see you finally came to one of my get togethers,” the tall, dark haired Greed said.  “I see you have a couple friends, I know Alphonse, but I haven’t met your other companion,” he commented, eyes falling on Ed’s golden ones. 

Roy smiled, shaking hands with him as Ed’s hands constricted on his own arm a bit.  “Um, yes, this is Edward, Ed, Al’s brother.  I’m helping him get to know some new people…” Roy began.

“This is all new to me,” Ed said, his eyes taking in the environment, catching Roy off guard when he spoke up.  “I have never been around this many people.”

Greed started to comment but stopped.  All around them there were perhaps six or seven people gathered.  “Ah, I see, well, nice to meet you, Ed,” Greed said with a grin and held his hand out.  Ed stared for a second, then reached out with his metal right arm and shook Greed’s hand.

Greed stared at the strange metallic hand for a second, only long enough to verify that this was indeed exactly what the stuff Envy had found had detailed.  It was correct.  The boy was real enough and it was easy to tell that something truly aweful had befallen him.  The golden eyes alone spoke volumes and not just because of their strange color.

“Well, Roy, Ed, the rest of the guests should be coming in soon, but if you want to walk around and through the place and check out the food and everything.  Lust’s around somewhere, and I think Envy’s camped out in the living room watching Nightmare again,” he said, nodding and then glancing over to Al who was standing and watching Ed carefully.    

Roy looked over at Ed and smiled.  “Do you want to walk around a bit, before other people get here, so you know where everything is?”

“Oh, I guess so,” Ed said, his curiousity outweighing his nervousness about stepping away from Roy in the house. 

Ed looked around, then let go of Roy and headed toward the nearest doorway to explore.  Roy watched him go.  Greed came up beside him and put a hand on Roy’s shoulder. 

“We gotta talk, man, I got something you need to know,” Greed said quietly in Roy’s ear.

Roy started for a second but nodded slowly.  “Mr. Reed, you wanted me here specifically, please tell me that this wasn’t a bad idea to bring Ed here.”

“Ed will be fine, Envy is gonna watch him, Lust too, but you gotta know.  Van showed up here after you raided his place.  I ain’t been able to shake him out of the place since then, and turning him out ain’t an option without him turning on me, that’s a danger I don’t want,” Greed said, his voice still quiet.

Roy nodded slightly, knowing the truth in what Greed said.  He glanced over toward the door as Hughs came in with his little daughter on his shoulders, apparently having caught the child at some point.  He immediately started talking to a couple that had come in with him about how amazing the little girl was on his shoulder.  She beamed and chatted at people too.  Roy looked up as Lust came through the room.  Lust was smiling and chatting with another of Roy’s officers, Danny Bosch. 

“Where is he now?” Roy asked, turning around and grabbing a drink from the table.

“Basement, I think, there’s an outside door.  I’ll tell Armstrong to bar it from the outside until you cuff Van.  You should take him out through that door so your boy there doesn’t see him,” Greed said, walking away to welcome Armstrong who had just arrived.

Meanwhile, Ed came into the living room where Envy sat crosslegged on the floor watching the big screen TV play a movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Ed walked in slowly, watching the images with interest.  He’d gotten used to seeing television and movies at Roy’s house, but this particular movie was something he had not seen before.  He watched as the two characters sang to each other.  Envy, black hair pulled up on top of his head in a tail looked up to see Ed standing there watching the duet with Sally and Jack.  He had read the reports, and he recognized the boy even though he looked a hell of a lot better now than he had in the hospital photos.

“Hi, Ed, right?” Envy said.  “You can sit with me if you want.”

Ed didn’t say anything, only moved to sit beside Envy and watch the movie intently.  After a while he spoke, “They love each other,” he said quietly.

Envy nodded.  “Yeah, they do.”

“Will they have sex?” Ed asked thoughtfully as they grew closer to each other in the film.

Envy blinked rapidly and looked at Ed, who was utterly serious he realized.  “What?”

“When you love someone more than anyone else, you have sex or make love with them,” Ed said thoughtfully, eyes taking in everything on the screen.

Envy hadn’t expected him to ask about that sort of thing.  “Um, well, you can, but love isn’t just that, you know, there are other things people in love do.”

Ed blinked and turned to Envy and stared for a moment.  “What kind of things mean you love someone?”

Envy could have kicked himself because he realized that in less than a month he was having to figure out a lot of things, and one of the things was being sexually abused.  No wonder he had questions on what these things meant.  He swallowed hard.

“Um, well, you know, people kiss, you know, touch lips, they hug each other, hold hands, cuddle with each other, do things for them, just be with them, just to show love, you know…” Envy said slowly.

Ed was quiet for a long time as they watched the rest of the movie.  Finally when it was over he looked back at Envy.  “How do you know you love someone?”

Envy shook his head.  “Different people know it different ways, you know.  You look forward to spending time with them, miss them when you’re away from them, maybe your heart beats a little faster when they’re around, you just want to be with them more than anyone else, and they make you happy and make you feel good,” he said slowly.

Ed nodded.  “So love is wanting to be with someone?”

Envy sighed.  “Sort of, you can want to be with people you aren’t in love with, but it is different when you have friends.  You want to be with your friends, too, but the person you are in love with is just a different thing, you know,” Envy said with a nod.

Ed nodded and stood up, the metal foot making an odd sound on the floor.  Envy barely noticed the sound as Ed left the living room to go back in the foyer where Roy was standing.  He helped Ed figure out what foods he would eat, but below them, someone else had noted the odd gait of Ed’s footsteps.  The basement carried the distinct sound easily below them.  Before long the sound of footstep fell on an empty room.


End file.
